My aging soul

My aging soul

Slowly transformed from childhood to old age,

the unblemished white of naïve innocence.

The soul is never as it was.

Tarnished by experience,

darkened over decades.

In its beginning,

pure brightness shining light.

And then we age.

Dimmed, flickering and sometimes dark.

Threatening to dip the scale,

in favour of the night.

When I do, I think, I act and am

in such a way unflattering to what I could have been.

A spark of dark falls upon my soul,

like dust it stays and builds up into patches.

Nothing is ever truly lost,

tarnished by bad decisions it may be.

The darkness staining heavily my soul

can be removed just like the toughest dirt.

People all around me.

Family, friends and smiling strangers,

in their eyes reflects my worth.

Not my beauty,

which will decay, just like my youth,

but the worth of my most inner self.

But also me, all by myself.

I have the strength to come to terms

with my shortcomings, and my falls.

I have the strength to get up every time

to learn, to overcome and to be better.

And sometimes,

when it was not at all my fault,

to heal and emerge stronger.

Not the white of pure innocence,

but the darker ivory hue,

withered through the ages,

but never truly dark.

That is the colour of my soul,

aged just like fine wine.

Full of potential in its early shining white,

but true beauty

by years of careful ripening.