I’m hunting for ghosts,
In alleys lit by memories,
Phantoms of yesterday,
Carved out of my mind.
What I once held,
You me and our dreams,
Scraped knees and screeching swings,
Pokémon cards and shiny things.
Caught between childhood and reality,
My loneliness, it clamps like a vise.
I’m searching for proof,
Verify that youth.
That time has long crumbled,
But I’m clinging onto demons.
Groping for familiarity in this world
You do not exist in,
I’ve found revelation, truth,
In this new age and sin.
They say memory has two blades,
I never knew until now.
I’m hoping I get that button,
I can press and go back.
High school’s in ten days,
And what’s become of our pact?
The time that we spent, fuck,
You were my castle in the sky.
That time when we did not yet
Have the incentive to lie.
Is it just me?
Drowning in these one-sided memories?
Remember freeze tag every recess?
And fighting for those swings?
Flying without abandon,
Now I’ve lost my wings.
And yes nothing gold lasts,
But I hope you can still fly.
Innocence, it’s a luxury,
And I’ve been stripped of mine.
Everything that I see now,
It reminds me of you.
And that time I cling onto,
That long distant youth.
The featured image, ‘Perish the Thought’, was used with permission of artist, Robert Alan, a mixed media artist from New York City.
