Lost Time

I wake up trapped in

the lost paradise

of an old memory.

-

The distinctive smell

of toast cooking a few

small rooms away,

-

the delicate warmth of the bed,

the sun gently pouring

through the gaps between the blinds

and filling the room entirely.

-

There’s no sound yet, not really,

nothing but gentle birdsong, the noisemakers hiding

in nests within wilting winter bushes, in wait

for better times.

-

It’s scary how fast it all

passed me by.

-

Now that same home is owned by someone else,

and those who did occupy it back then

are ghosts,

only ever seen reflected on walls by shifting tree branches

or in contorting clouds at sunset,

-

but the memory still crawls to me one morning

out of every few hundred,

-

it is still alive, and it seeks out my

weary spirit,

imbuing it with remembrance

which, then, itself rebirths the bleeding past.

-

I live and bask in it for just a few moments,

savouring the taste of warm butter no longer available

feeling the warmth of the crumpled duvet,

-

but all of that is gone now,

the memory lives on

-

but you do not

-

and this same feeling

will never quite be emulated

again.

-

The body just a shell lost out at sea

praying for the sharp waves

to carry its soul away to

-

greener pastures,

greener pastures

-

which only exist in a lost

past,

-

gone,

-

your body

trying so hard to

catch up to thin air.