Vanishing Youth

"After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on – have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear – what remains?"
[– Walt Whitman]

The dust raised by vanishing youth still tastes bitter in your dry mouth
The strong clutching hands of uncertainty still hold you back.

Every word turns you into a liar
Every path leads you into the mire
You ask me what to do in this cold heart life
Listen to the wind: everything you need is in yourself.

"Read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your Life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any Book" or song,
Dismiss whatever insults your true self.

"To be nobody but yourself
In a world which is doing its best day and night
To make you like everybody else
Means to fight the hardest battle
Which any human being can fight
And never stop fighting."
[- E.E. Cummings]