The Young Forgotten

A quick bit of creative writing:

How is it that you have so thoroughly forgotten yourself? The convictions of your youth are obscured by adult preoccupations and sufferings. Lost is the peacefulness that once silenced your racing heart. Lost are the noble ideals of an imperfect childhood and the courageous ramblings of an over-educated adolescence. They were virgin sacrifices to an unruly God who spread naught but confusion and ignorance among the once wise. Your integrity has dissolved into opportunity and the fear of having missed some vital mistake in this past blur of delayed pubescence. Your chest, once swelled with honor, now churns beneath the pressure of an undisciplined life.


Remember the secret passions of your misplaced innocence. You were born among the snow dusted peaks of Denver in March. You once found solace in the rolling blue mountains of New England. You were at peace alone under the stars in the vast Texan prairie. Years ago, these green things were clear-cut to make way for the construction of the new you, a stranger to your past. Having peeled back your own history like snakeskin, you have destroyed the only foundation you were ever given. How ungratefully foolish of you.

And now, still a child, you stand in the shoes of an adult under a roof you've paid for yourself. You look at your street in the neighborhood you have selected for yourself and you wonder what home is. You catch yourself stumbling on the crumbled edge of a fathomless precipice as you are wrenched back by the collar of your shirt into the arms of a younger, wiser version of yourself. Remember her. Trust her. Hold yourself accountable to her. Make her proud of the woman you have grown into. And remember to be proud yourself.