The Loss of Innocence

I lost it late, my innocence.
In a flurry of middle-age betrayals and loss,
it was suddenly gone.

Others lose it young,
in the secret battles of childhood
where the young are so often lost.

It does not matter when.
Something powerful is lost in that moment,
and the loss hands close, like a ghost,

singing dirges to the sunshine,
robbing us of certainty. Some
would call it “growing up”.

I would call it
murder.
But then, perhaps I miss it more than most,

having had it longer than most,
an innocent with gray hair, so sure
I almost came across as cocky,

old enough to remember that feeling
of absolute certainty,
and how it lifted me up,

made me feel invincible and loved
and powerful. And now, I am none of those things
save loved.

I do not mourn it. I have, but I do not any longer.
One goes on after all. Even the broken ones.
but do not kid yourself.

Even if someone new emerged from it all,
someone in some ways better,
it was still. Always will be. Murder.

About this poem

If you talk to many people about that moment when they lost their innocence, it will break your heart.

The picture was taken many years ago, at a Renaissance Faire.

Tom