It hits deep
in my chest,
in my stomach,
in the spaces between my ribs.
This thing they call nostalgia.

No one told me it would hurt like this.
What do you mean I can’t go back?
How can time be so cruel,
Taking pieces of me with every passing year?
I watch old videos and see myself laughing in some forgotten summer,
A place that doesn’t exist anymore.

It’s like watching a ghost.
I was there.
I was her.
But I can’t reach through the screen and pull her back.

I walk through old streets, sit in familiar rooms
But everything feels faded, like the color’s been drained out and no one told me why.

I wish I could go back.
Not forever
just for a day.
To feel sun the way it felt then.
To laugh without knowing what I’d lose.
To be held by time instead of running from it.
But I can’t.
And that truth wraps around my throat every time I remember.

I can’t be a teen forever.
I can’t freeze these years.
I can’t stop what’s coming.
And it hurts.
Because I’m not ready.
Because I don’t want to grow up.
I don’t want to watch these days turn into stories I tell instead of moments I live.

The past hums beneath my skin,
A song I can’t sing out loud.
Only feel.
Only ache for