I AM GROWING OLD

I glide my fingertips over the wrinkles on my face, I am growing old…

Each one depicts something

from my life

but I don’t care.

Not a single artist

could arrange them like this,

shallow, deep, smiling

they look at me from my skin.

I frown in vain,

I didn’t do it,

It’s all God’s work…

The one next to the eye that laughs,

and the one next to the lips

that changes the whole face.

I was growing old

and you danced in my chest,

becoming the most beautiful part of me…

I smiled with my soul, eyes, lips

like an actress on stage.

My wrinkles were beautiful too,

there was more and more room for you

because my skin was getting bigger…

I am growing old, I am slowly forgetting,

I know it was happiness.

I am burning

because my heart is tingling and my thoughts are black,

I AM GROWING OLD!

BIOGRAPHY

MILKA J. ŠOLAJA, born in Korenica, Republic of Croatia. Lives and works in Belgrade. She has been writing poetry since her high school days.

So far, she has published 11 independent poetry collections: “If I Were a Bird”, “Dreams in the Mirror”, “Between Reality and Sleep”, “Traces Will Remain”, “Black and White World”, “I Think Your Hands Are Yours”, “A Tear from Stone”, “I Was Born Alone” and two co-authored poetry collections: “I Dream with Verses” and “My Dreams Written in Verses”, published by “Kulture Snova” from Zagreb. 

The eleventh poetry collection “I Am This I Am” is in preparation for publication, as well as the autobiographical novel “Walking on the Edge.” She writes love, homeland, descriptive, reflective, spiritual and poetry for children, translated into English, Hungarian, Bengali, Spanish, Greek, Odia, Arabic…

Award-winning, represented in many anthologies, monographs, collections and magazines, both domestic and international. Some poems are composed. Member of: Serbian Writers’ Association, Literary and Artistic Union “Vlaho Bukovac” from Split, “Culture of Dreams” from Zagreb, Institute for Children’s Literature in Belgrade. She is also a member of several International Groups, Forums and Academies for Poetry and Literature, where she has received a large number of awards.