Coming Home

I find myself back driving along this familiar road, yet it isn't so familiar anymore. 

The sun paints the trees the same way they did last spring. 

I can still hear the church’s ding. 

The ground carries the same potholes.

This is all so dear to my soul. 

As I drive, I find my mind flustered with memories. 

Ones that spark friendliness, yet somehow emptiness. 

My heart aches with resentment, but also yearns for contentment. 

I drive past that corner where the road meets the sidewalk, and can still feel fingerprints pressed against my own. 

Prints I’ve tried so hard to clone. 

I drive a little further, and can still hear innocent laughs fill those exact booths.

Those booths have now been handed down to new youth. 

I still know how to get to her house. 

I shamefully still wear her blouse. 

I still know what shoes I wore when we all got stranded at three AM.

I still can't get that night out of my head. 

All your smiles imprinted in my mind, our bonds forever intertwined.

I've buried all our photographs.

Is it bad I yearn for one more laugh?

What I no longer know is the feeling of living without a ticking clock. 

I wish we could all have just one last talk. 

I did not know that the present I was living, was something I’d crave only a couple of months later. 

But the odds are never in my favor. 

Nostalgia brings me warmth and delight. 

Oh, how I can almost recall all the sights. 

It does just that until your mind begins to remember. 

All that joy begins to dismember. 

One by one, each person, place, and thing comes to light. 

One day they’ll come back to bite. 

Reminding you, your innocent spirit has now been lifted. 

It's been used, and experiences, these people, these places have now all drifted. 

Our giggles haunting that booth, our connections haunting my mind. 

Why do I feel like I am always running out of time?