She is a woman. Some might still call her young, though she has moved through it. She has seen too much life to be classed with those daughters.
It takes more experience than you might suppose to wear black knowingly: to carry off a little darkness on her back: to proudly lead and remind the less confident she lags behind as well.
It is her strength that emboldens her to force a stop in the rainbow broadcast through the collective mask of socially-vetted lives. She has suffered too much to shove more color through the prism of human toil.
Age lingers just under her skin, waiting patiently as it ever has, present to those who have the time to see through the slow-fading youth. Skin will wane into translucence sometime, but she is ever opaque beneath. The core and essence of woman endures. Grows.
Lost love has worn away the mystique of younger years and the whispered vitality of girl; something more real remains. Love lost has delineated where old cares will be worn, where knowing and life and pain will be worn.
Her self-earned surety frightens the small man. Her stern, hushed pout forebodes disinterest. The softness of her eyes assures that she has love to share yet.
Her face is a promise that belonging is still available for us whose loneliness sticks in the throat. She promises the cooling warmth of an aging woman, a familiarity and steadfastness of many years’ worth of
She has love still, though a different sort. She welcomes me to slough off the hurt she has bettered. She is resilient.