You can never get your old life back.
It is gone.
It is ghosts,
dancing in the darkness of your mind
or morning light shining upon your heart.

You will get flashbacks, 
but your longings
steal pointlessly from the present
where your life is growing and changing,
like the garden you planted that amazes you
or the string of stars that take your breath away.

Your life is full of awe and pain.
Open the portal.
Emerge from the depths of the ocean
to see a different land
untraveled,
waiting for you to put your footprints upon it.

Linda Joy Walder

Reprinted from ” Running Naked in the Snow” (Free Verse Press, 2021)