I’m wandering down side streets I used to live near. Lampposts tarnished. The lights never used to flicker- I drown in the dimming hues. Paint chipping off the house I grew up in, I hope someone cares for it how I once did. It grew lonely around here- it feels helpless too.

I watch you from afar and wonder what changed. You moved far away to the city. Married a few years later, I hope you feel lucky. Forgetting my favorite song and that’s why the radio haunts you. Burning memories away and forcing in new ones. New friends. New voices, but none of them sound like mine. Stay gone until I roam back to the south side and let me heal in the moonlight casting over the cornfields. Winding roads snake through the center and I follow it like a promise. I can’t look at loss the same, so I avoid looking in the direction of this town. Rewrite the story and tell me who plays the villain. Tie a white flag to my front door- I surrendered to the sadness a long time ago and if you need proof, come see it. And I think that’s where healing began. So when clumsily stumble back to a town that’s no longer mine and no longer yours, I wonder if you ever do the same. Wonder if you throw your head back and laugh through crooked teeth. I wonder if you wander through here at all, or avoid the entire thing- because we all know I was once the center of it all. -AMT©️