Bittersweet
By Josue Reyes
This tree stood tall behind my backyard.
As if my own personal stopwatch,
It has timed my growth.
It feels as if it was just yesterday,
Where I was outside playing with my friends,
When I had no worries of my own,
And if I did they were all resolved in a matter of hours.
I find myself reminiscing on the past a lot—
How oblivious I was as a kid,
How easily I kept myself entertained,
How much simpler everything used to be.
Nostalgia is a strange thing.
It’s a feeling that makes you feel both joyful and miserable.
It reminds you of all the happy times,
And it also reminds you how you’ll never experience it again.
But I know now that it’s no use.
It’s no use thinking about what once was,
And it’s no use wishing to go back to how things were.
All of it is in a past that has already been.
Even though I can’t go back to how it was,
I am still grateful it happened.
I am still grateful for the people that I knew,
And I am grateful that I have lived my life the way that I have.
Every now and then I’ll look out my window and stare at my tree.
I’ll reminisce about my childhood,
But I don’t wish to live through it again.
The magic of nostalgia is that you only experience it once,
And nothing else can change that.
