Nostalgia
Nostalgia leaves us with
the rosy hued
sepia toned
pretty pictures
of pasts that never were
and can never be again.
Yet I find myself reaching into my memory banks,
I search and search
and I dig and dig
till I pull the picture
out of the box,
and I can see the frame
Just as I remembered it
it looks just the same, but a little bit better.
Holding it in my hands
I hope that if I could somehow imbibe this photo
and push it down deep into the creative centers of my body
my loins would burst forth the human experience
that I wished it could have been at the time
and that I more deeply crave now
but it can ever be
and it won’t ever be
and that’s just the fucked up nature of Nostalgia.
Walking forward with you is impossible.
The bridge that led us to each other and on which I now stand,
when I look back to it from the days when we were together,
those parts of the bridge have already fallen
fallen in decay
for those parts of who I was that drew you to me
that drew me to you are dead.
Now what we have now are semblages of that love.
We have memories and affinities
and well wishes and good laughs.
But there’s no more adventure
there’s no more butterflies
there’s no more shared dream
the dream is dead.
And the person who must walk down this bridge now
and who will stand 100 feet further along this bridge 5 years from now
that person will have even less to say to you.
I see it
I see where I need to go
It’s just there, ahead of me
it’s bright, and shiny, it’s calling me
But, I can’t help but feel my feet weighted down
wanting to stand in just this spot
so I can continue to smell and feel and taste
and just be buried in the residues of our love.
In what we once had and what you meant to me.
I want to camp out and pitch a fucking tent on the edge of the abyss of my bridge
because you loved me in a way that nobody else ever has
and there’s a part of me that’s afraid that nobody else ever will.
Part of me is afraid that I can’t walk forward without you;
that your presence was the elixir that gave me courage
that your belief was the fuel that sustained my fires
or the faint wind that reminded me to look up when my nose turned black from digging it into the page in front of me.
This is what you have done for me for so long.
And in these months that we’ve been apart,
I’ve done it for myself
but it’s felt chaotic and crazy and uncomfortable and challenging
and honestly there’s been a part of me
that thought it would end
And that you’d come back
and I’d have a place to sit again.
But that place is never coming.
We are never coming back.
You are never coming back.
And you will be in my bones forever.
My love will you will last forever.
The ways that you have moved me will be forever.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I love you.
Goodbye.