The clocks have changed the way
We see the world, trading later dusk
For morning light, and suddenly I am
The fairweather boy again, forgetting
Summer lust as winter approaches
Gradually once again.

The attraction of extended adolescence
Weakens slowly with the years, but
Never quite disappears. Nostalgia for
The unhappiest days of my life,
The memory of a time best forgotten,
Has a masochistic magnetism
Like nothing else.

Summer did not need to be
The season, I realise now:
It merely needed to be found
Beneath the winter clothes of
The next girl who drew my fickle eye
For it to reignite my questing heart,
Raised on TV tropes that were just
Fairytales in disguise.

Perhaps the road less travelled is
The road less beguiling than the one
That was never found; perhaps
The part of my heart that
Never grew up still searches in vain
For the wood in which the paths
Diverge. Perhaps I failed to enjoy
All I had because I always longed
For something else.

At last, I have found a joy
So great I cannot ignore it,
So enveloping I cannot walk
Away from it, so pure that
Even my malcontent heart accepts
That there is nothing better.

At last, I can feel the joy
In everything my teenage heart
Found wanting. The ghosts of my past
Will haunt me no longer.

10/30/2018

Posted on 11/06/2018
Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince