do i regret my past

it depends on

the cycle of the seasons

the crispness of the morning

how good i cooked the bacon

it relies on a careful compromise

between trillions of cells

and how long i sat on the toilet

nostalgia is a response to

external stimuli—

you do not think nostalgically

you react to a song in context

of sitting on the bleachers

at the 8th grade dance

with the other rejects

the guy who snorted crushed up

smarties in the back of class

the guy who was like a karate jock

or some shit

nostalgia is when

you look at grainy pictures

and wonder where that

person went. how many cells

have turned over, changed your

sense of taste, gave you

cataracts, decided your womb

would never work. a body

of decisions made without

your input

and cradling this sense

that at point H you could

have gone a different way

and become a doctor or

took the cheerleader to prom

but here you are at point X

with two steps before death

wondering which frozen food

sounds good tonight

don’t worry, it’ll pass they say

but memories don’t fade

they just get rewritten

like 1,000 mimeographs

staining your fingers

and by the time you decide

that you weren’t so bad in

high school, it’s too late, it’s gone

and you, waiting for the

result that never was

jcb