Nearly seventy, the horizon dims steadily,
where faces blur into solemn evanescence.
The glass mocks truths I once ignored,
renders youthful confidence an antique mirage.
These lines, etched by decades of whispers,
frame a portrait I struggle to recognize.
Time’s quiet cartographer surveys the flesh,
mapping loss with an indifferent precision.
My laughter, though resolute, sounds foreign now;
its echoes crawl through unfamiliar corridors.
The mirror convenes ghosts of unsaid choices,
offering riddles only regret dares answer.
Who is this stranger wearing my absence?
A thief skilled at stealing my certainties.
Still, some rebellion stirs beneath the surface,
a heart protesting its gradual unmaking.
For reflection owns no ultimate dominion—
it holds me captive, yet I remain more.