What I once knew

10/28/25


It started with writing a birthday card,

And it ended up here

Hundreds of memories stowed away,

Some here to stay,

Interlocking hands with my rejected fear


To think about one thing,

Then to think way too much

Endless highways of everything I’ve vowed to forget

In a roundabout hot to the touch


Burned, my hands are peeling

I’m in tact, but I couldn’t feel more broken,

Picking up the pieces of everything I once knew, once was

Speaking words into my journal that wish to remain unspoken


Voids and pits I’ve filled with glitter,

Holes I’ve patched up with tickets and pictures and receipts

Temporary fixes to something missing,

Momentary bandaids to feel complete


A loved one that I didn’t lose,

But drove himself mad till he was lost

I think about this narrative

The double edged truths I may be sharpening to alleviate the costs 


My home and the people that made it that,

A place that can’t be replaced by these new collectables

The polaroid roof cannot resist the rain,

The storms too strong, the sun too forgettable.


And as I sit here and think of all I’ve lost,

I worry for my mind and my back

How much more shit can I carry,

Through the years and tears and still be intact?


Not a pity party, just some questions

This is how I break down my mind

Matching loose ends with knots I made at eight

Journals and logics that have hugged me since age nine


I’m the same, but entirely different,

And everything that’s familiar feels like a stranger

Looking into my home and loved ones,

The new unfamiliarity of it all warns danger


What to turn to 

When what I've known my whole life has left,

The bones are untouched, the house still up

The insides now empty, product of theft


And I search for new homes,

I try to make my very own

But nothing can equal the walls I once knew,

The floors my size 2 shoes roamed


And so I hold onto this thought,

And my journal does too

Together we carry the weight of what was, what is

Together, we bask in the beauty of what I once knew.