The Child Within

Your youth and enthusiasm for living

Evokes distant memories

I too was that child

Innocent and unaware

As an older man fear dictates that I say

Beware

This world doesn’t care for you

Isn’t concerned with your heartbreak

Will leave you stranded alone

When you need a comforting voice

In your darkest moments of despair

Alone you face the image in the mirror

Where did I go wrong?

No longer the innocent

Longing for that sublime state

By Heaven’s Mandate or by fate

Your cowardly glance into the glass

Reveals the truths

Of innocence lost and abandoned

What I was and what I am

Two contraposing identities

A life’s journey wasted on frivolity

Now in a box

My imagination has me trapped

The child on an island

Facing his fears alone

No end in sight

Tears fall like rain

Longing to be the child again