birthday bashing

these places feet you take me, i have been before. and with your hurried steps feet, i know you remember. damn the push and pull of futile desires. that bench. the grain on the wood. the graffiti of lost youth. the paint chipping away. that sound of the train missed by a second. that the same moon? low hanging crescent, orange and gloating. mocking me, saying it knows things i'll never ever lay my eyes on.

and sometimes in the morning upon waking, you wonder still where you are. and in those few moments of revelations, you feel more the nausea of the ordinariness of your everyday than the soft glow of the early sun. you used to run across the hallway and down the flight of stone steps to see the gumamela flowers unfold. not once have we seen petals bloom but we believed, didn't we? we used to believe in magic too. or loved the thought of it. of fireflies dying at midnight. of dragonflies in summer living only for your amusement. but since you were 24 dreams have lost their meaning for you.