What do you remember?
Is it the old days
living la vie in simpler times
Endless summer days,
slow suburban drawl
crumbling convenience store parking lots
Is it the absence?
We haven’t talked in a long time,
I wonder if you thought I was estranged
Scrambling together simple meals
entrenched in cheap entertainment,
grasping for fleeting comfort
It’s hard to process
all the time that’s passed
Sometimes I stare blankly into the mirror
looking for answers
Other times I make up stories and
let the thoughts wander
Maybe I should just ask you directly
I always say that
so many things
When did you start hearing voices?
What made you fear the outside?
What was so important about those math puzzles?
I don’t know
There’s a lot left unsaid
I don’t want you to think there’s
any spite
It’s not like I made it easy
As time passed I was urged to
hold onto the beauty of life,
the rope that pulls us along
a thread that waves in pain and triumph
discovery and wonder
a new frontier each day that passes
Yet I still fall prey to the unmoveable force
one that spirals hope into
cycles of crippling decisions
I saw it in you
I saw it in me
Is it in all of us?
When the visions of a gentle decay
are realized year by year
I still come back to those old parks,
the winding gentrified streets
and feel the pins and needles
I pray one day things will move beyond
sterile white walls and
24 hour news headlines
But as I continue to turn the page,
I still see those gentle smiling eyes
I still see a faded image
The mobile home begins to shake
crushed by the weight of
the ill fated financial decisions
the knee jerk paranoid thoughts
an unstable foundation
The mirror cracks
There was always more