Reluctant Pilgrim of Time

I wear the weight of days I can’t put down,
each one a thread that tugs me back,
to faded rooms, to faces gone,
to voices softened in the dark.
—-

I tell myself: look forward, stay.
Breathe in the air of what’s here, now.
But every moment pulls away—
slips like sand, breaks the vow.

—-

I’m tired of the haunt, of turning back
to the sepia shade of what once was,
yet I ache for those hands I can’t clasp,
for laughter lost, for all the flawed.

—-

To live in today feels strange and thin,
a ghost trying to fit in with the flesh.
And though I try to move ahead,
I carry the past with every breath.

—-

Yet here I am, a keeper of hours gone,
a traveler bound to shadows cast.
I walk a path that stretches long,
between what was and what won’t last.