Nostalgia

Having been home from my adventure for a while I've really started to miss it.  Waking up and knowing that I was going to do something new and see a place I've never seen was really invigorating.  Now I'm back home and, though I managed to maintain an interesting version of my life for a while, I'll very soon be slipping into a different pattern.  I'll wake up and go to a place I've been before and I'll do things that I've done before.

I'm not totally sure I really know what anxiety is, but I may be experiencing it.  For me, there's a serious discontent which arises in knowing that large portions of my life will be familiar.  I wrote this poem during such a time of discontent.

If you like this poem, I'd love it if you'd leave a comment or share it by way of Facebook, Google+, etc.


Nostalgia


It’s been three months since my friends and I have seen our homes,
Though hundreds of photographs have made their way back to our families,
Those voyeurs who peer at us through the keyhole lens of my 35 millimeter.
Our endlessly smiling faces have become the prisoners of a future scrapbook,
Tapping a tin cup against the bars lining every negative.
My memory is still fresh,
But like a patrolling warden,
I’m looking through them now,
And I hate what I see.
A well-timed pose at a sign near the border,
Another perfectly impossible grin.
These heaps of manipulated memories laugh at me from behind the bars,
Because they’ve known what I now do:
Manufacturing an experience is like framing the accused,
While the memories worth keeping are all on the lam.


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