Roadmap

some would look at me through 
eyes clouded with sadness and sorrow,
ones filled with fear, really

some would say I’m made 
of wrinkles and lines,
no longer black and white,
just a ghost of gray,
a shadow of who I once was,
awaiting the day when I whisper
my last breath

yes, I see the wrinkles and the lines,
but I see a roadmap,
a face weathered by experience,
a life chartered amidst joy and sorrow,
compassion and pain,
heartache and bliss,
sunshine and thunderstorm

I see a body that no longer works 
as it used to, and never will,
but I see legs that climbed mountains,
arms that hugged until they could not,
hands that built and tore down
and built again,
and a heart that beat so loudly,
I had to share its overflow 
with others

I see a worn woman,
but it’s not through saddened eyes
that I look

for, I fear not,
because I see in these wrinkles and lines
and in this tired body,
all the places I have been,
the people I have touched,
and those who will remain
a part of me, 
forever a key in my legend

I see hope and love, 
more alive than it’s ever been

and that will long outlast 
this roadmap

-image via Women’s New Network

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