In pages, bound by aging seams and youth\'s decree,
Where words poured out in rush of passion\'s tide,
Now at four decades, I peruse and see
A younger self, in black ink, is implied.
Of innocence and longing once inscribed,
In fervent verse, on sex and fitting in,
Echoing queries and a self, prescribed,
Through prism of an era, yet to begin.
Emergent voice in dappled lines laid bare,
A nascent poet\'s heart in words confined,
Navigating the labyrinth of care,
Where woman\'s love for woman is enshrined.
Yet, reading now, the mirror holds me fast,
A narrative of self, from shadows cast.
A lesbian I was, and still remain,
Some truths of self, like blood, course through the vein,
And in these verses, youthful and untamed,
I see a heart that loved, and was unashamed.
Astonished now, not by the themes held dear,
But by the constancy of self laid clear.
In poems of sex, and struggling to belong,
I see a girl, courageous and strong.
A mirror held to past, reflecting light,
On how we change, yet stay the same in sight.
And in this silent room, age two-score,
I see myself, as never before.
In decades past, a burgeoning desire,
Now in middle age, an enduring fire.
Time has moved, and yet the heart still yearns,
In poetry of past, the present learns.
A youth in ink, an age in memory,
A lifetime penned in versed history.
Four decades on, in poems of the past,
I find my self, my now, my everlast.
© Susie Stiles-Wolf