What is Never Coming Back

WHAT IS NEVER COMING BACK

I miss outrageous hair bands, the delicious sizzle and pop of a needle in the groove.

I miss mustard sandwiches for lunch, tomatoes and salt until fit to burst, or butter and sugar on slabs of bread.

I miss first kisses, crushes, flirts, and charm, practice with the glossy lips of Farrah, then real girls. I miss free-range exploring, being barefoot and dirty the usual case.

I miss garter snakes and tall grass, grasshoppers and crickets, spiders, frogs and my other playmates. I miss seven or eight really great dogs.

I miss being able to forgive my dad for bill collectors and state police detectives at the door,
for being married four times with zero divorces, the childhood beatings and constant lies.

I miss TV, tucked behind mother's legs, wrapped in the fuzzy warmth of her bathrobe, safe from harm. I lost my delusions years ago.

I miss summer camp, with archery and swimming, bunk beds, sailing and bug juice. Another chance to reinvent myself.

But more than anything else I miss, I really miss the freedom from time limits and deadlines, never caring what day or time it might be, at least until the streetlights came on.

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The only time kids

care about time, is next time,

they forget last time.

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This Haibun (Prose/Haiku combo) was prompted by those timely folks over at DVerse poets.

©2025 Christopher Reilley

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