little girls grow up

who once reached for the birds singing in the trees
now she is one of them,
the uncatchable song

i knew you as an awkward, silly, pudgy thing
but death changes people
and makes them more beautiful -

too many lose brothers.

The past is an old, bearded man in a tattered coat,
Pulling at my arm with insistence,
Meeting little resistance.
A Fagin, enticing me with Dickensian charm.
I always was a sucker for nostalgia,
Let me live in a fairy tale, or hide myself in history,
Turn me loose in fiction.

The future is a ghost, transparent, beckoning,
All she has to sell is the unknown,
Which I face with reluctance, with some fear.
A new start, yes, but I don't want to finish with my Fagin.
There's comfort in the misery of the known,
The knowing, roots me in securely,
Untethered, I may float from existence,
Both past and present, lost to me as I hang in the balance,
Caught between the years' end and a new beginning,
Static, frozen, fearful, tharn.