Fleeting images,
black and white
and shades of grey.
An accompanying voice,
not mine,
but familiar
as my own.
I reach my hand out,
pleading without words
that I might touch
my memories,
then I pull it back again
quickly,
as what I make contact with
is something cold,
dead
and hungry.
It seems
that the past eats
those who linger
and the future devours us all.
Don’t look back.
Not back towards love,
or back towards youth;
there is nothing there,
but the mouths
of hungry ghosts.
They wait for us to join them,
but that will not be today.
HG – 2019
