“He said, ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of our hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’” -The Velveteen Rabbit

youth and beauty - fade

twinkling lined eyes are

swallowed in folds of

the aftermath of years of smiles

(or shouts)

the grass grows long

sprouts at the tips and

the stream trickles dry and

lined eyes that twinkled grow dim and

sunsets fade to the purest black and

my pen stops spitting ink and

you, with your arms facing down

one palm clenches, the other

kissing the pavement with fingers grown thin

and in that moment, all that remains

are the words

whispered in the long fragrant grass

crafted into poems by the river

unspoken - heard when eyes met yours

hidden in the sky’s ravishing streaks of liquid gold

preserved by the deliberate ink strokes

arranged by smooth,

then calloused,

then memory - folded hands