Aging

Every day I grow a little more "old."

I become what "old" should be.

I fall into the dictate.

This is a choice

Perhaps even a concession

Perhaps a conviction.

The choice, concession, conviction

is freeing

It hides me away.

Me who had youthful lusts

Me who had ambitions

Me, I, who had hoped for love and fame.

I can escape now into old age

and succumb to contentment.

I was one who, as Hopkins states,

was marked when young

marked by death

marked for pain

And even in my youth I was never young.

That is what bothers me

I am to become old, having never been young.

I am to slump toward death, having never lived.

I was lovely once

But only for an instant.

I grew fat.

Loving eyes poured upon me once

But the wrong soul peered out at me.

I have felt joy some three or four times.

Mine has been an embattled life

And I fought valiantly, though badly.

Since youth

death and holiness were poured upon me

Against death, I fought.

For holiness, I fought.

When young.

But now...old age has come.