Reluctant awakening

When I woke up today I found myself drifting away from a dream where I was with my dad in the old abandoned mansion by our house. We had been looking at pictures found on the old dusty mantels, pictures from my childhood. Pictures that brought back memories from another time. The pictures reminded me that, since I moved out to the desert, my children will never share similar memories, never experience the kind of childhood I loved so much. As I lay between the two realities, I found I had to let go of the past and remind myself that I am making new childhood memories for my own children. They will be very different from my own, but one day they too will look back in their dreams to the time that is now. And I hope they will have the same fondness for their past as I have for mine.

Wait…I was just in another world

Another time, another place

Please, I’m not ready to come back.

Let me live just a little while more

Among the memories of before.

Beloved faces, beloved places

Where the dreams were sweet

Young and innocent.

I’m afraid I’ll forget on my return

And reality surrounds me

Pushing out the images of the past

Will I ever see

The old places again

And run in the grass

Play in the past

Will I hold those hands

Sit on those laps

Explore the wild territory

Of my youth

When the tendrils of the real world

Wrap themselves around me

And seep into my conscienceness

Bringing me back,

Will it all be gone?

My heart is breaking

As I am waking

I’m not ready to go

I’ll crawl deeper into the covers

Pull the pillow over my head

Trying to grasp the lingering voices

Hear the fading strains of music

I’ll shut my eyes tight

Recreate the last scene

Try to feel those last feelings

Smell the dusty air

Willing my dreams

To pull me back in

Feel the old stairs under my feet

The rail sliding under my hands

Like it was before

I’ll reach the top landing

And you’ll be standing there

And it will all begin again

Visiting the sweet memories

Haunting my favorite dreams