G - Faded Girl

Faded Girl

I cannot smile the way I do in the old photographs
Perhaps I left it there - my expression captured and trapped in the
black and white,
Trapped in the fading colours,
Trapped with the young girl that I abandoned
In the course of growing up
In the way we never mean to leave ourselves behind
It's a trick of Time's
We believe we'll never be OLD
And react in the way that adults do
And have responsibility and not understand youth
In the way our parents do
Did
Past tense now
I stare at myself in the hall mirror,
Using my fingers to smooth away the lines
Stretching the skin at the corners of my eyes
Pretending I'm not my true reflection,
That the mirror lies, that the age is in the glass, not on my
face
And in my eyes
I attempt another smile and fail again
I look nothing like the laughing girl in the pictures
I look nothing like the memories
I only bear a passing resemblance to the idea I have of me in my
mind
My brain too lies, it seems
Keeps the truth and years from me
Today, I can't find my smile
I am not a woman of forty five,
Just a faded girl.