Nostalgia’s Muse

There’s a constant nostalgia that plagues me,

a longing for memories.

Longing like maybe if I long hard enough,

I can feel like you’re still here with me.

And what are memories if not to be haunting?

Like carrying wood and brick of houses fallen; like something utterly daunting.

Like mirrors broken through storm and hurricane,

and only a broken mirror could ever know the pain.

Of pieces fallen, blood on the floor

and what if the mirror can’t be fixed anymore?

You buy a new mirror, glass still shining

and in the reflection is the same girl pining.

For memories, haunting like the month of October,

Memories contingent on the promise of getting sober.

The mirror is new but the reflection’s the same,

I can hear the broken glass, I can hear it whisper my name.

With questions that cut, questions like, ‘remember when?’

and ‘what if you could do that again?’

If I could have another memory, just one more would do,

I wouldn’t beg in the mirror, I wouldn’t dare ask for two.

And there’s a constant melancholy that greets me,

like a childhood home you can no longer visit.

Where the walls stayed the same

but nothing stayed the same in it.

The photos were pushed to the back of the closet,

and the room refashioned.

Like living every day in a jarring unfamiliar house

it’s not a life you could have imagined.

I find friendship in nostalgia and I find an enemy too,

regardless of the day, nostalgia’s favorite topic is you.

The muse to my memories, the reason they hug me and haunt me,

No matter which mirror I look into the mirrors will taunt me.

Because you’re nostalgia’s muse,

the muse that broke the mirror.

Whole or broken, only a mirror can

hold the hazel eyes that draw you nearer.