A Mirror of Time

Time laughs at the young.

It taunts and teases.

Both friend and foe.

It cannot be bought. It cannot be owned.

It cannot be controlled.

It brings happiness and snatches it away.

It brings sadness yet heals completely.

Never a stranger but always secret.

It exists only in sound.

A never-ending cycle of

Seconds

Minutes

Hours

Tick … tock … tick … tock …

Days

Months

Years

Tick … tock … tick … tock …

My daughter. The mirror of my lost youth.

Her raven hair taunts my silver crown.

Blue eyes piercing my grey empty sight.

The blood red lips filled

With the excitement

Of future kisses.

Bringing a promise of soft strokes

Upon skin

Pure as virgin snow.

My thin lined withered lips

Offer sacrificed wisdom.

Of a long life lived.

My lost youth

Entwined within words

And warnings.

She is my reflection.

Lines cut deep across my face.

A web spun.

A kaleidoscope of tightly knotted threads

Of bliss and grief.

Stretched and mapped.

Spilling down a flaccid throat.

Lying in ripples across a

Decolletage now forgotten.

My youth taken away by time.

Time bestowed upon my child.

Eternally sealed within her essence.

Her laughter.

Her hopes.

Her life.