Monday, April 27, 2015

nos-tal-gia:

/ a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations /

a reflection: it's not the tree, but it's not the water either. 


I love this word: nostalgia. It really is one of my favorites. Maybe its because I identify with it. I'm always wishing I could go back and change the way things were. Thus this weird thing that I hesitate to call a poem, but it's not prose either. It's halfway between, wanting to be one or the other, but it can't. Like nostalgia. We want to either completely know a thing or not know it at all. But we are stuck between.

nostalgia

It's odd when you meet
someone you never really knew.
They were always there
and you knew their name,
but you never talked to them
never hung out
never invested.
Because they were "different" from you.


Then, one day, after you grow up
and have to act decent to people,
and stop avoiding everyone who isn't one of your "friends"
you run into that person you never knew
and they say hi.
You say hi back.
And then you find that you get along
fabulously.
You are not as "different" as you thought.
Rather, you are similar.
You laugh and talk and joke and avoid those people that neither of you like
together.


Sadly, because you are both "grown up" now
you end up leaving the company
of new-found friendship,
with no plan to return,
because you both have friends
and jobs
and school
and life in general just gets in the way.
You know you will not see them again.
Not for a while.
Not for another undetermined amount of time.


And when you do see them again
they will probably be married
with two and a half kids
and a dog named Jack.
Part of you aches, wondering,
what would have happened? if both of you
had stopped
and got to know one another
YEARS ago when you were kids.


Because, as they leave,
as they walk away
and you turn to go as well,
you realize that you go great together.
that you compliment one another.
And have a whole lot more in common
than you realized at first
when you were still trying to avoid
that person
that you knew
but had never met.