The Loam

You look at the lines

Around your face

And the things you’re doing

And the things you’ve done

And you realise

It’s been a long time since you left school

And there are things you’ve done

That have not worked at all

And suddenly you don’t seem

Young at all

And you speak

Of the confusion of a life half lived

And half thought about

And I can tell

You do not often feel what you were meant to feel

The things which swelled behind closed eyes

So deep and close when you were young

That you thought would rise and rise and never stop

Now look

As if they have long since stopped

And you have long since stopped

Attempting to reach something more

And yet

All I can see is something more

It’s written in the blankness of your face

It will never leave

The love you don’t know what to do with

That you don’t know how to use

So you just wander

And hope someday you will

*

Why do the ones with so much joy

So often end up lost

And wandering in the loam?