Versions of Me

Versions of me have perished with time.

Such is what it means to grow up.

Time doesn't slow, nor does it change its pace

as you lose and you gain.

The versions of me that have died

did so because I couldn't resuscitate them in time.

Like sacrifices they were cast to fires for others

to feast upon.

Those versions of me no longer exist

through I do remember and miss them

like phantom limbs or a whispered breath against the skin,

the ghosts of unlived lives.

Need I say that I long for the old me

like a widow does her lost love?

I long for the ages when my heart beat like a hummingbird's wing

at the highest arc of a ride on the swing.

The adventures I've had and the people I've met,

how many versions of me have lived on within them?

Despite what I've lost, I still wonder if I might become

not some hollowed creature of sadness

but that little girl who sang songs,

dancing barefoot in the grass,

arms wide to the sky,

believing that every version of her would soar,

never to shrivel and die.