Worn Lines

I feel life slipping away

Bit by bit,

Hands I no longer recognize,

Skin I no longer know,

Wrinkles already a passport,

Marks that never let me forget,

Sad fate, poor luck,

Time always pouring out.

White, gray,

Some say bleached,

Nothing escapes, nothing endures,

We are temporary passage

Or lost passengers.

I see the mirror laughing,

At the face I no longer know,

A portrait always fleeing,

A yesterday I never returned to.

The body is a worn‑out map,

Lines that history has drawn,

Each memory, a contract,

But who signed it after all?

And if nothing endures,

Not laughter, not pain,

Only indecisive longing remains,

Between dust and murmur.

If the future is this

And has no cure,

I want the past

To relive its fortune,

For even in vertigo

There was dance,

And even in error,

Some hope.

Here is life,

An (un)finished version.