The Person In The Photograph Poem by Emma Kessler

Who is that person looking back at me?
That form in the photograph?
The face in it seems familiar
Like a skin
Or a sweater that has grown too small
And been tossed aside and forgotten
Been replaced by something new
It feels like a younger, more innocent
And in ways more knowledgeable form of the present

Younger, but not ignorant
Wiser than it is given credit for
Innocent not because it is too young not to be
But because it understands the language of it's conscience
And listens
More knowledgeable
Because it knows there is more to life than knowledge
It knows to laugh, and to smile
It sees the whole purpose of life

Where has that being gone?
I know I knew her once
But she seems to have left me for another life