Nostalgia and Nirvana

I breathe in life, and exhale experiences.
I shed a tear to taste pain.
I lose all my senses,
when I feel these chemicals rushing through my veins like Novocaine.

Some days I dream
of building
a time machine,
as I cling

onto this urge to hit rewind
on moments in life,
and I’m searching for nirvana—this fix, this release
of dopamine.

Because there’s no feeling
more euphoric than reminiscing
upon the past,
wishing you could get the best parts of it back.

No greater high
than to be alive. No better remedy
than creating memories.

Feels like the good old days
are slipping away
but that’s fine
because in time—

I can look back and say
I had never wanted to get so numb on life, that when it passed me by—
I’d forgotten to remember the beauty of yesterday.

You can find this poem in my poetry book If I Bare My Soul: a collection of poetry & prose available to order only on Amazon!

Seventeen Again

Oh, to be seventeen again, 
waist deep in naivety and lessons to be taught up the road ahead. 

At that age, there was still so much I had to learn, 
Not sure what tortured me more, painstaking algebraic equations or innocent crushes never returned.

Always happy but never satisfied, with a constant craving for
something more.

Sometimes I wish I could go back,
so that this time around, I could slow down and savor every minute I had.

I’d hold on a little longer to all the ebbs and flows that come with getting older.
This life doesn’t get any easier—wish somebody would’ve told her. 

But how was I supposed to know, 
that’s just the way life goes?

If I knew then, what I know now,
I’d have realized sooner, there was nothing to worry so much about. 

I could, without hesitation, let go of the things that no longer serve me,
nor contribute to my peace.

I’d free myself from the constraints
of these growing pains,

stop trying to make 
life pick up the pace.

I still may not have everything exactly figured out, but without seventeen, 
I would’ve never been able to continue down this path, and grow into the woman I am now at twenty-three going on thirty.

I believe 23 has many great things in store for me. Here’s to getting older!