The Person I Used to Be

I am not the shape of my body

Or the color of my skin

These are merely landmarks

Of the person I am

Within

Once upon a distant time

I was a girl of many dreams

But somewhere in life’s forward march

They got lost,

It seems

Too many passions folded

Then surrendered to Time’s greed

The future does not give us

What we want, but what we

Need

Sometimes, in perfect moments

As the evening slips away

In gold-vermilion vesture; I become

For blissful half-breaths the girl of

Yesterday

Don’t misunderstand; I’m not ungrateful

But being a woman is bitter-sweet

Girlish freedom is a pasture

Beneath lost day-dreams and

Bare feet

I’ve traded luring day-dreams

For a better mystery

Of motherhood and the adrenaline rush

Of what is yet

To be

© Janet Martin

'Between the girl I once was

And the woman I’ve become

Lie too many

Years'

Doris Day in Don’t Eat the Daisies

Our Writer's Group challenge; Where is the person I used to be?