These are the days.

I am slipping away, the hours are too long, and not long enough. Treading time, I falter.

At once a mystery, the mind, it begins to dim or shut off. There is lack, much. There is time, too much. There are ideas and threads. I've sampled the wine, the affection. But am no closer to the truth. No closer to love. It is an ever evading dream. Only a dream, perhaps. For twenty years I've been chasing a dream. It's no surprise then that reality's sting, once in the "vast open"--to quote the poet Ashbery--is so harsh. That aging is such a dilemma. Who will want me now. Who would love an aging woman whose body cannot compare to those still in their bloom, whose face changes wildly with each passing day. A stranger grows before me. It is not the dream, it is not the love I've never been given but have fought so hard to keep. Is it true that which you pull at with all your strength, desire, and thought can simply defeat you in the end? What does the end look like? Is it empty? Is it love? There is no love. There never has been. I've been fooling myself all these years. I am a fool who points to the moon. How can one sacrifice so much of themselves in the hopes of gaining love and be the one who is left empty handed while the other one, who loved and still loves, knows he will find it again. As if love is cheap. A commodity. It is nothing. There is no love. There is only pain.