The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence

The age of innocence now far behind
The levels of love pass slowly by
The elusive joyous one to find
The drive diminishing to even try

Then a voice within cries out
This is not your time to despair
This is what it is all about
The love that teaches you to care

I do not understand this voice
I want, I need, I must receive!
In this there is no choice
I cannot accept this and believe

I am different from the rest
I have special needs to be fulfilled
I must be the one caressed
I must not give in or yield

To any voice that would demand
That I have not the love I desire
To have not these flames fanned
The flesh is what I strongly require

The flesh that will be my addiction
That comforts and elates
The constant need without restriction
To loyalty with mates

I must have these loving creatures
I cannot concern myself with lesser matters
I am not concerned with features
I am not concerned with a heart that shatters

This went on, such a frenzied life
Until the hearts that become the stone
That sharpens the love that cuts like a knife
Left me in pain, bleeding and all alone

The love I was addicted to
So fleeting and unfulfilling
Was not doing what it should do
And slowly I lost all feeling

I now began to look around
Suspended in time and space
Listening to life without a sound
With only myself to face

Then, as I trembled, a light revealed
The way to find love sublime
The many wounds can now be healed
As love flows outward time after time

There is a source to be found
The river of perfect love
That cannot by flesh be bound
The one that can only come from above

This is not my time to despair
This is what it is all about
The love that teaches me to care
And turn my life inside out

I still want the touch of a gentle hand
I desire the love but know
That love given without demand
Is the true direction of the flow

Now I have love without reservation
As the river washes away the fear
As it passes through me, in observation
I see the Age of Innocence very near.