A Poem on Aging, Self-Acceptance, and Growth

I’m looking in the mirror trying to recognize you

You have a black chin hair

Gross, how long has it been there?

You’ve got sunspots and brown spots

Red spots and blackspots

You have a new wrinkle beside your left eye

It looks like a deep line like an earthquake crack in the brown desert earth

I look closely at your eyes,

Is that little hairs right in the crease towards your nose

Grab a tweezer, or a lawnmower

They surely have placed themselves where they don’t belong

I continue to peruse your face

Short grey hairs poke up on your crown line

They must be eradicated; they could not possibly belong on those brown locks

Who are you?

I don’t recognize you.

Is this what getting old is like?

Will I continue to age and look in the mirror to this unrecognizable face?

When does my soul catch up with my face?

Maybe it never does.

It actually is magical knowing that I have been with myself since my first memories

And I will be with myself until my last

It doesn’t matter what the shell looks like, my soul has learned and continues to grow

I am the person on the inside

And I look forward to being with myself in old age

Cracking jokes and crapping in my wheel chair