Nostalgia

It gets under your nails. It presses the buttons just right.

Grinds the correct gears. Peels back the layers.

It’s a warm bath after cold stiff limbs, a familiar face in a crowded room, a fresh start on a finer chapter.

A daydream to the distant past when the world had hope. A peak behind the curtain of a younger you, a greener you, a less cynical, angry, tired you. A more insecure, naive, impressionable you.

It forms you like clay, with each passing year. It’s what you reflect upon.

It feels like childhood. It feels like growing up. It feels like being twenty with your head as empty as a drum standing on the vast maw of life before it swallows you. It feels like a gothic castle, sprawling with secrets, shuffling the books in the library to reveal hidden passages. It feels like hugging your inner child. It feels like not letting adulthood kill you. It feels like hanging on for dear life to a time not hollow, when sunshine danced on your lashes and you frolicked through the onion grass.

It’s beautiful and it’s entirely yours.