my eyes turn back

I … have courted luck in countless ways against ragged judgments and self-umbrage I still draw breaths, counted and the mirror has been charitable most I meet deem me forty (I’m not about to correct them) my visage betrays scant little of the darkness and damage within oh, it will one day chase me down - no doubt soon enough but I feign my teens in bearing also that, a lack of maturity hence I make no false assumptions of grandeur or wisdom my child's heart thrives and bounds (a lad seeking truths yet proven) it yearns, still, for a soft meadow's callow passions and the blossomed beams of a summer moon, daubing sweet skin … I hold no kinship to middle-age or frosted brows 'tis a young man's mad marrow that moves my flesh the ambitious vigor of a yearning heart that thrums my chest there is nothing of my age but the years themselves and the altered perspective of being nearer dusk than dawn … my eyes look abaft now more than onward, I must concede that - all the myriad priorities of gain and dream and want have dissolved into the one meaningful prerogative of life itself - the only TRUE worthwhile endeavor that should be the foundation the solid base that we learn and treasure and build upon from childhood, the ONLY thing that I've come, thru all these years through all these countless lessons and struggles, to care about ... that is, quite simply and purely and unmistakably … love.