Lost Time, Lost Years

Lost Time, Lost Years

Lost time, lost years behind me.
Delivered from myself when
I needed to feel whole and wanted.
My remembered years have
Distinct aromas and in-house scenes:
Pancakes. Crisp bacon. Coffee brewing.
Overloaded kitchen table. Homespun
Conversation seasoned with corny jokes.
Adults with radiant faces and
Loving hearts. Boisterous children
Protected from all outside influences.
Did I single-handedly parent
These jubilant days?
Were they mere keepsakes
With no authentic meaning?
My life is a daily rotation of emptiness.
Zero given. Plenty taken.
My mysterious past is traumatizing me.
What happened in the midst
My early adulthood? Lost time,
Lost years, why are you hiding?
Do you not belong to me?
Day after day I feel like
Mary with little lost lambs
Trailing humbly behind me.
I believe my lost time,
Lost years are very much alive,
Dwelling in someone else’s eyes.
Yet, they refuse to
Stay open when they see my face.
An old woman told me
In the summer of my hunt:
Your life was my life many moons ago.
I wanted to feel loved and whole.
Finding my lost time, lost years
Was important to me. However, I stopped
Looking the second winter of my hunt.
One day to my surprise, I found them on
My back porch neatly stacked and tied
Together with a single black ribbon.
A note said: “Open at your risk.”
I took a chance and untied the ribbon.
My lost time, lost years leaped out of
My hands when I touched them.
Was my grip was too tight?
Did my eagerness scare them?
I concluded they didn’t want me
To reclaim them if I couldn’t
Live with the story they’d tell.
After much thought I left them alone.
I commenced a new life without more
Lost time, without more lost years.
What I’m telling you is: Some
Experiences shouldn’t be revisited
If you can’t forgive the event.
Here’s a few words of advice,
Mixed with a little bit of wisdom:
Take the lemons you’ve collected
And make some sweet lemonade.
Drink to appreciating yourself,
To appreciating your new life,
To all the happiness that’s out
There waiting for you.
Sometimes it’s better to be full
Of cold sweetness, rather than
Cold bitterness about your lost
Time and lost years that won’t come
Home the same way they left.

copyrighted by dorothy charles banks