# Thirty-five Years I have lived thirty-five years. Thirty-five years of mornings, thirty-five years of the sun's old rhetoric, the same sky repeating itself like a worn prayer. I have seen the seasons turn their wheel— spring's green amnesia, summer's gold fever, autumn's careful letting go, winter's stone sleep. I have counted the small deaths: a friendship that withered like paper in rain, the apartment I left one November, the person I was at twenty, at thirty, at thirty-two. I have collected the ordinary griefs— the mirror's slow truths, the letters I meant to write but didn't, the distance that opens between you and those you thought would stay forever. Thirty-five years, and I have learned that time doesn't heal so much as it shifts— the weight doesn't lighten, only your shoulders grow accustomed to bearing it. I have loved. I have failed at it. I have stood in rooms full of people and felt completely alone, and stood alone and felt the presence of everyone I've ever known. Thirty-five years of asking: *Is this enough? Am I enough?* The answer, when it comes, is always in a language I'm still learning. I have lived thirty-five years, and I am still learning how to live.

Thirty-five years. Life has crossed the second threshold.
I loved, I thought, I fought.
I visited certain places, I saw things,
Sometimes I was happy.

Anger passed me by, the arrow missed,
And from the bullet—a few small scars.
And trouble flew away like a drop from a wing;
Like water, misfortune parted.

I took the first pass, I'll survive the second,
Though my shoulder-bag weighs heavy.
What lies beyond the mountain? What lies beneath it?
My temple has turned white from the heights.

First, life enchants us:
Everything in it is warm, the whole heart kindles,
And like a beguiling story,
Our strange mind cherishes it.

Something frightens from afar,
But there is pleasure in this fear:
It amuses the imagination—
What of a magical adventure!

The broken heart in the chest barely beats,
The soul as if it fled the body in an instant.
A spasm of hellish torment coils in its depths.
And a cry of pain breaks through.

I myself am a captive destroying myself,
Crippling in my mind the last scraps of love.
And how to live with it... I cannot even say
When nightingales no longer sing in the heart?

When the meaning of life becomes meaningless.
When despair batters from within.
The past suddenly a forgotten pastime!
I will simply erase it from memory.

The night tale of an old man.
But the playful deception will end!
We grow accustomed to miracles.
Then we regard all things lazily,
Then... and life sends to us:
Its riddle and its dénouement—
Already long, worn, tedious,
Like a retold fairy tale to a
Tired soul before the hour of sleep.

Thirty-five years. Somewhere will be the last station...
Where will my track break off?
Thirty-five years. Life has crossed the second threshold.
And this cup is not yet drained.