NaPoWriMo, Day Twenty-Four: “Fellow Kids”

Fellow Kids

Every day you want
to be younger, to be

alive again. You haunt
the imagined joys

of your past, fictive
memories, happiness

manufactured
by your nostalgia

-obsessed mind, songs
from a decade ago

and the old movies
you never even saw

then. You sprint
to keep up, but protest

the things you deem
too new for you, too

alien. You never feel
at home here, your own

time and space.
You reopen the same

doors each day, expecting
one to lead someplace

different, old and young,
a recast history as happy

as your nostalgia
and a new future, kinder

than the one you’ve grown
tired of waking to each day.

Thanks for reading! April is National Poetry Writing Month, and this year I’m writing and publishing a poem prompted by a different reaction GIF each day. My 2020 and 2019 NaPoWriMo poems (about the Fast and Furious movies and car insurance, respectively) are still live on Medium, so check out my profile if you want more. My 2018 Twilight Zone NaPoWriMo poems are online here.