These Days, I

I miss most the jubilant faces that light up in welcome as you arrive, giving you barely half a minute's warning before you topple over from the weight of all the hugs given you, your fall punctuated by the shrill staccato of laughter, of shared memories, of futures.

The illusion hangs before my eyes(dark unless touched by stray sunbeams) for a second, frozen in infinity, irreconcilable with the flux of the present as it is fleeting, like the moon on a pool, rippled away by a droplet, by chance, by the gale winds sung to existence, borne of thousands upon aeons of sibilant butterflies and their velveteen butterfly wings.

Kelly Clarkson

Already Gone