I’ve Changed
God only knows truly the scale and scope of my mutations
even I can't help but reel, at the sudden abject horror
of a newly discovered wrinkle, accompanied
by my own further weathered eyes, shaking quietly in the mirror.
Look close.
See the spark of early years now duly faded,
where the black Irish blues have gotten gray around the iris
I've changed, and I can feel it
the divide between what is and what was then is growing wide,
and there are shadows scrambling on the ledges of the cliffs I've left behind,
forever leaving.
I see them in my dreams still, harkening me back
and I go to them, feeling the startling and familiar pangs of memories left unchecked
these animals run the grounds untended, emaciated predators of the mind
a speciation of fear forever hungering for my willful, present, attention
But I've changed.