#wrinkles
My childhood face is long gone,
left behind are only whispers of before
Behind my smile lines, echos laughter of three little girls
My faint freckles hint at countless summers spent under the blazing Texas sun
Blonde streaks woven into my chestnut hair remind of a time when I was Golden
Although my face is no longer so young,
I cherish its aged beauty
because within my wrinkles;
-my chestnut darkened hair-
lives all of my childhood stories
Nov 4, 2025
Nov 4, 2025 at 10:40 PM UTC
Would you like to age with me?
To stare into my wrinkled face
Will you still see the love you had
-for me when I was young?
Would you like to age with me?
I’ll stare into your brown eyes,
crows feet may surround them,
white whiskers on your chin
but I’ll still see the love I have,
for you no time can bend
Jun 11, 2025
Jun 11, 2025 at 2:52 AM UTC
It's raining outside right now. It's raining.
It's beating down the dust on silent pavements.
I waited you to come the day before.
Today I've realized it was bedevilment.
I've realized it when I saw your smile
In raindrops, flowing down the window,
Your pretty eye wrinkles, so tremulous and soft,
And you in whole, so false and so ridiculous.
Waiting for you, alas, is not my lot.
No yesterday or next day, and no later.
I hate the rain today! I really hate the rain!
There's so much pain in it. I stop to be a waiter.
May 1, 2025
May 1, 2025 at 4:27 PM UTC
Each smile a map, each line a trail,
Etched softly on the skin's embrace.
A journey marked in fine detail,
The story written on your face.
The laugh that danced around the eyes
Still lingers in a softened fold,
A map of moments, lows and highs,
A quiet story, gently told.
Not every crease was born from pain,
Some stem from joy that overflowed.
Expressions that we can't restrain,
Emotions that our hearts bestowed.
So wear these lines with quiet pride,
They are the footprints of your days.
A testament to life applied,
A living poem on your face’s page.
Apr 29, 2025
Apr 29, 2025 at 1:08 PM UTC
empty wrinkles in the sheets – secrets spilling from your lips;
speak of me in high regards, while digging for those words
“I love you,” that are so deep in my guts
but it takes guts to tell someone you love them, just as soon
as we’ve met – that reason that met my eyes, but is it really
meant for me – to see your real smile behind your mouth’s
many lies? we both desperately try to cut away our past,
though it's so hard, like fading your own hair the first time,
missing a few parts at the back
yet I could stare endless hours at your back – the depth of
your spine, in this empty place where you lie; in all awe of
you, I enjoyed my awe for the time. though time blushed
with me; each morning that I’m forced to leave your side,
we seem to grow even further apart
in place of our memories of last night, these empty sheets
have trapped a piece of both our hearts – but even in these
trap sheets, I still find it so hard to say, "I lov...
Jan 18, 2025
Jan 18, 2025 at 12:33 PM UTC
She’d been depressed at seeing how her parents had aged in just a couple of years. She hadn’t really contemplated time much before, it had seemed an endless resource.
Seeing her lying listlessly in bed, he asked “Are you ok?”
“I’m getting old,” she admitted, closing her eyes to conserve energy.
“You’re turning 20,” he stated dryly, somewhere in the darkness.
“Still,” she said, “You should know that I’ll start wrinkling, any day now, like a deflating balloon.”
“Yeah, I was afraid of that.” He said. She opened her eyes and looked at him soberly.
“You’re almost 27, are you getting crows feet?” He flinched away from her outstretching hand.
“No,” He responded confidently, but he checked his reflection in her dorm room mirror.
“Soon, your libido will flag,” she informed him solemnly, taking his hand for comfort.
He slipped off the bed and gently closed the bedroom door with a casual swipe of his hand.
“You should start eating fiber,” she gasped, “and retirement planning!”
“I’ve got a few good months left..” he said, as he came back to the bed and started unbuttoning the top of her yellow dress, “I might need someone, in the medical field, to keep an eye on me.”
“I could do that,” she smiled, as his button work progressed, “I do need more clinical hours.”
Aug 22, 2023
Aug 22, 2023 at 7:51 AM UTC
I think, those wrinkles on your face
The ones you want to erase
The ones that appear with every laugh
Are waiting to be shaped
Into musical notes
That form the melody
Of the sound of healing
Jan 11, 2022
Jan 11, 2022 at 9:46 AM UTC
I can read the lines between your eyes
Every emotional hand-me-down
...Relax...
Uncrinkle the nose, the mouth and forehead...
Throw away those thoughts instead.
Oct 9, 2021
Oct 9, 2021 at 1:40 AM UTC
The world asks to be patient
To do my best days like this
Have hope despite the constant barrage of problems
To flatten wrinkle of worry across my forehead
But when I achieve that
Can still feel the worry wrinkles in my heart
Dec 12, 2020
Dec 12, 2020 at 12:01 AM UTC
The way she smiles as she walks,
The way she jokes when she talks.
The serious expression her face takes on,
The way her eyes are never drawn.
The feeling when she hugs me to her chest,
And all my problems go to rest.
The nickname that she gave to me,
Always spoken so playfully.
The slight wrinkles on her forehead,
From life's problems that she was too early exposed.
This is the girl that I love,
A fighter,
A survivor,
A warrior.
Though we will never be together,
My love for her will never falter.
Jun 30, 2018
Jun 30, 2018 at 3:01 PM UTC
I’m older if not wiser
Can’t *** like a geyser
And I think I can hear the bells toll.
They’re a little less distant
And a bit more insistent
And no longer seem quite as droll.
Out the corner of my eye
I think to espy
A dark figure with malevolent intent.
A voice with a tone
Like the scraping of bone
that leaves me whining and spent.
Is it getting closer?
Is it there in the toaster?
I worry perhaps more than I should.
But I’d be lying
There is no denying
I wish now that I’d done more good.
Sep 1, 2020
Sep 1, 2020 at 1:25 PM UTC
thank you for
looking at me
with such kindness
in your eyes,
love in your veins
and warmth in
the wrinkles
surrounding
your eyelashes.
Mar 31, 2020
Mar 31, 2020 at 4:35 PM UTC
Imagine you and I, rocking chairs on a front porch after time has left it’s mark on us.
The wrinkles on your forehead tell the sweetest stories.
I hope we’ve kicked all the things that had their grip on us.
Imagine you and I, bathing beneath golden rays with our backs against the earth.
The concept of time has no hold on us.
I’ll love you long after this body fails me
Mar 9, 2020
Mar 9, 2020 at 1:39 AM UTC
See
by Michael R. Burch
See how her hair has thinned: it doesn’t seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are gentler now; see how each wrinkle laughs,
and deepens on itself, as though mirth took
some comfort there, then burrowed deeply in,
outlasting winter. See how very thin
her features are—that time has made more spare,
so that each bone shows, elegant and rare.
For life remains undimmed in her grave eyes,
and courage in her still-delighted looks:
each face presented like a picture book’s.
Bemused, she blows us undismayed goodbyes.
Keywords/Tags: Elderly, woman, grandmother, thin, thinning, hair, airy, emu, moult, soft, plumage, wrinkles, laugh lines, frail, gaunt, bones, winter, grave, eyes, courage, laughter, family, gathered, bedside, kisses, hugs, goodbyes, farewells, life, death, photo album, pictures, photos, photographs
Published by The Eclectic Muse, Love Me Knots (an anthology of the top 100 contemporary love poems), Nutty Stories (South Africa), Black Medina, The New Formalist, Better Than Starbucks, Potcake Chapbooks, Strange Roads, Sonnetto Poesia, Litera (UK), Poems About, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (in a Farsi translation by Dr. Mahnaz Badihian), Somewhere Along The Beaten Path (Anthology), Freshet, Life & Legends, Famous Poets & Poems, Short Quotes & Poems (listed in the top 10 short poems) and Victorian Violet Press. “See” won 3rd place in the 2003 Writer’s Digest Rhyming Poetry contest, out of over 18,000 overall entries, and was published in Writer’s Digest’s The Year’s Best Writing.
Mar 6, 2020
Mar 6, 2020 at 4:44 AM UTC
It was when the rain start
as my heart skip a beat
I heard yours in triump
Thumping and pumping so fast
You smile mischievously
And sing for me endlessly
Oh! How hate and love collide
Just like heat after the summer kiss
And the cold breeze of snow flakes bliss
It was all clear to me oh! How I miss you badly
Years after years
Decades strike straight through me
Wrinkles and lines visible on my face
As the smell of your perfume filled my nostrils
And now it's my time
To go back to our old days my love
The film of life is done with me
And I'm ready to go free
Sep 22, 2019
Sep 22, 2019 at 6:43 AM UTC
From a very early age we start to form some wrinkles in our mind
with all of those impressions we gather in life of an unusual kind.
It's those things we think, believe, say and do as we live and grow
that form the basis of our problems of which maturity does show.
Especially all of those wrong thoughts, beliefs, words and actions
indulged in that cause or bring about much of our dis-satisfactions.
Very often we don't really know or understand what's for own good
and hold onto those things that we need to let go of which we could.
We all become attached to certain things that so form our behaviour
which can cause all those problems we seek help for from a saviour.
Whether it's to do with some physical, emotional or mental distress
we often wonder how we find ourselves to be in such a current mess.
Too much of a good thing that seems to be alright for a period of time
may only start the ball rolling towards an unlikely or unhealthy clime.
And as we tend to give in to so many temptations each and every day
our mind develops wrinkles that over time come to plague us and stay.
We're all usually born with what is known as a clean slate of a mind
that's gradually filled up by things as we live, grow and learn we find;
particularly with regard to the circumstances that come with our birth
and family situations through our parents on this planet called Earth.
There are also things that come to us unexpectedly as we all live
which may cause various problems and even some setbacks give.
But it's really how we handle and cope with what life throws at us
and take advantage of any opportunities that will result in our plus.
The wrinkles in the mind which may form during the course of life
have the hidden or likely potential to cause someone a lot of strife.
Especially when they're formed in the mind of one at an early age
and aren't smoothed out by the one concerned at some later stage.
They resemble the grooves on a vinyl recording that are played with
a record player's needle passing over them producing the sound pith
of recorded music or song that have been damaged by some means
playing the same part over repeatedly and its progress contravenes.
______________________
Aug 13, 2019
Aug 13, 2019 at 2:15 AM UTC
I followed the lines
on my palm
and they never
seem
to make up
their mind
as time
passes
by
Apr 15, 2019
Apr 15, 2019 at 3:09 AM UTC
My grandma is an old woman
With shiny silver hair
Like the queen's hat
I go to visit her on Sundays
Her face lights up like
Night sky from the old moon
She smiles the most gorgeous smile
Her teeth make a little window
To her heart
Love finding its way back
My grandma prepares
All the dishes that make my mouth water
She begins at Saturday morning
And finishes by evening
Slowly, bit by bit
My grandma is aged but
her love is like wine;
The older, the more intense
She feeds me with her fragile, shaky hands
The paneer tastes creamy
The jalebis are like her skin,
Brown and sleak
It has been 6 weeks
Since I have been meeting her
Every Sunday
Today when I checked my weight
The machine pointed at
Sixty four point five
From fifty eight point seven
It is her love that has found home
Within me.
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 12:18 PM UTC
If I will have wrinkles,
let them be from too much smiling.
If I will have bad vision,
let it be from looking at good for too much.
If I will be starved,
let it be from me feeding you all the good I've had.
If I will have broken bones,
let them be broken because I
have taken the pain that would've gone to you.
If I will be weak,
let me be weak from being too strong.
When I will die,
let me die because I have done enough good here.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 4:25 PM UTC
Who's the boy with the sickly eyes down the hall?
He looks so familiar. But his name I can't recall.
He's on my lips, I can feel him right there,
hope he didn't catch me with my mouth open stare.
He looks like he needs a nap, to get some rest.
His clothes all wrinkled, his posture's a mess.
But he has a thick line of laughter creased in his cheek.
His smile has some tatters, and he's got coffee stains
for teeth.
His glasses are fogged up ***** with that day's grease.
If he took a bit of care for himself he'd be looking,
well,
better than what I've seen.
Too bad he isn't better than he is right now.
Nov 7, 2018
Nov 7, 2018 at 5:35 PM UTC
The youth
has gone away.
Only lines
of fun stay.
When I smile
they go astray.
Nov 7, 2018
Nov 7, 2018 at 7:57 AM UTC
Our task in class
was
to draw really
depressed people
for a competition
...
I wanted to draw
a really
really
sad
child
...
Chubby
drooping cheeks
Soft
flawless skin
She said no
...
...
...
Instead,
I get to draw
an old person
...
which is fine
But,
...
the WRINKLES
HOW am I to draw
perfectly
EVERY SINGLE
LITTLE
WRINKLE?!
And especially
a value scale
of shading
as well
while
ACCOUNTING
FOR EVERY WRINKLE?!
...
See,
the issue
isn't that
I am unwilling to draw
BUT
But
...
I, consider myself
at big picture person
NOT as much detail oriented
I, consider myself
someone
who relies
at least half
if not more on
creativity
NOT to say
that I lack
technical skill
BUT,
my strong suit
would be
the idea
Now,
she's challenging me
by giving me a simple idea
And having the key portion
be the
execution
...
According to my mom
it's a good thing
...
...
And I agree too,
but...
...
Ugh,
I suppose I'd better go draw
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 8:35 PM UTC