Soul Aging

It seems a hundred life-times

Have passed through just so many years

It ages you inside

But only shows in your eyes

And through occasional tears

You can only scream so long inside

Before it begins to leak out aloud

Tears have long since lost their value

Pity is no longer enough

Perhaps it was never enough

But long ago, it was all you could hope for

All that was there to see

When did common courtesies and compassion

Shift from expected to surprised

Now over again, back again

Familiar, but not close enough

All the dreaming in the world

Can't change fact to fantasy

Change reality to something kind

Though fantasy can turn cruel

And often does

When did sleep become more real than foreign

Bedding down your emotions

To put a stopper on the cruel retribution of love

Numb as the ice-caps on some distant mountain barely seen

What was old became new

Now what is new begins to mould

To rot in the summer heat

Pummeled by a summer rain that you cannot help but cry

The air is always cold 

The warmth felt through someone else's skin

Though joy sometimes fills fit to burst

 It is a slow leak that steals its strength

And lowers you back to reality

It is not the tonic of mortality that sickens you to think

It is the more bitter potion of the minds immortality

That chokes its way down your throat

Strangles out the thrashing heart of you

That struggles to remain whole

It is a spirit cracked with age
That still remembers innocense
A life begun anew
That still remembers dying
That knows it will die again all in the process of living

You love in order to live
And live to die with love
To be reduced to something barely breathing
Afraid to look yourself in the eye
As precious and perfect shatters
And lies broken on the floor

A life-time or a day?
 Shown from the inside-out
Who is the child and who is the master?
Both lost again in some blue-enshrouded night
Somewhere beyond dreaming