A chance encounter
stumbled upon among half-
forgotten names in a virtual
yearbook sent me spiraling
back into musty halls clogged
with the muffled echoes of teenage angst.
Snapshots appear then
disappear into a dormant scrapbook
where images blur and bleed into each other,
the Kaleidoscope collage from a long barren field.
Memories are like sandcastles
on shifting sand--
tiny grains of truth and half-
truths watered down with the waves
of eroded emotions.
Swells of first love
and small triumphs crash
against pangs of rejection
amid tugs of uncertainty. It’s
a roller coaster of
insecurity cloaked in brash spirit--
a wobbly ride over untested landscape.
I fumble my way
among the fossils,
like a blind woman
picking the bones of a distant land,
detached, yet not…
immune to lingering echoes.
~~~~8/12/10