There’s a version of me
that still lives here,
barefoot and unfinished,
thinking the past is something
you can step back into
if you take the right road.
The boardwalk still hums,
the salty air still heals me
and the sun light stretches
like memories can be eternal.
But then there’s you,
not nostalgia,
not something I lost,
something steady
I get to come home to.
You,
the way you show up for me
without making it a thing,
the way you stay open
in a world that keeps asking
for less of that.
You aren’t a memory.
You are my life.
Some places are meant
to be visited,
not lived in again.
And what I want
isn’t behind me
in these trees
or tucked into old summers.
It’s you, it’s us
on an ordinary day,
deciding what to do
with the light we have left.
Chestnut Cowboy 