The Two Faces

I got my new passport in the mail,

and I couldn't stop comparing

the old photo with the new, the trail

of years showing in my staring.

The old face is full of hope,

believing things will work out right,

believing time is on my side. I cope

by not looking at it, at the sight

of who I was. The new face knows

better. Five years have made me strange,

have made me someone who shows

the weight of that accumulated change.

I'm holding both pages open,

trying to find the line between

the hopeful one and the one woken

to what things really mean.

But there is no line. Just time.

Just the years piling up like snow,

just the moment when you climb

out of yourself, and no one you know

is looking back from the mirror.

The passport is valid ten more years.

I'm afraid of what's clearer

each time I renew it, of the fears

I'll see written on my face,

of the stranger wearing my name,

of the slow, invisible erasure and grace

of becoming someone ashamed.