An Old Diary
A Poem
In an old chest stashed away,
was a diary of a little girl,
shielded from the dust and the filth,
from the sins of the outside world.
Its brown stained pages, I flipped through —
leaves that dried with a faint fragrance of vanilla,
like an old woman
holding the girl tight to her bosom;
aging doubly, taking the girl’s years into hers.
I knew the girl once,
naive and full of dreams,
her soul strewn across
the sheets of this old tattered book.
If I could speak to her now,
through these worn-out pages,
I’d say,
Come what may
don’t let the world douse
that little flame which keeps you warm.
Listen to your heart and never doubt,
‘cos when all’s said and done,
love is what will remain —
and that love is all you’ll truly need.
Isn’t wisdom but the child of time!
In those pages, now, let her sleep. Unperturbed,
till a day when they wither and die,
freeing her forever
into memory’s winding lanes.
