At a certain age, it begins.
Time finds a way straight into your skins,
and stretches and wrinkles and fades in some places:
mocking, miniature lines all over our faces
that serve as a proof of the years gone by
(the quotes round the mouth, the feet at the eye).
Am I proud of the story they tell so loud
to often a stranger and never a crowd?
My history is richer than what could be shown
on a plane less dimensional than my own
thoughts and hopes and ideas and loves -
the determination that will rise above
evidence of hurt from decades past.
I will become myself, at last.
