The face in shadow is now
My reflection in a phone screen
Rather than a load of pixels
On a school computer screen.

Close up, I do not dissolve
Into squares of random colours,
But I possess the same
Cartoonish air of unreality.

Almost thirty years on, I approach
Middle age with the same knack
For adolescent folly as I had
When my little world opened out
Into something big and bad.

Through those wide gates I found
So many gems that briefly
Sparkled before turning out to be
More of the same shit
On a different day.

And now I find myself
Reviving the spirit of all those
Wasted afternoons I spent
Looking for the treasure that
Wasn’t there, like an old pirate
Driving himself to insanity.

Perhaps all I need is to
Get it out of my system the way
I never could back then,
Displace sad memories with
Slightly happier ones…

Or maybe I am revisiting
A dangerous road, running
The risk of stretching the shadow
Until I am fully in darkness.

08/03/2022

Posted on 08/22/2022
Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince