My car rumbles in the dark.
I speed around a familiar curve,
and I see the lights. Christmas lights.
I pull around the corner and they are overwhelming, beautifully chaotic.
In a blink, I'm 16 again.
I'm in love. I'm free. And I'm driving around a curve so fast my thoughts can't keep up.
I'm 16 again.
The heater is blasting, and my heart is racing. I've got a gift in the passenger seat just waiting to be given to my favorite person. Pure bliss fills my veins.
Then I remember
I'm 17.
My heart races for a different reason. Before it beat through thin air, fast, unstoppable. Now it beats through syrup. Painful and heavy, like a mallet slamming a wall.
I slow my car to a reasonable speed, there's no need to hurry now.
Arriving at this place is no longer a thrill of adrenaline, but an ache of once was.
It is a snowglobe of memories shattered by another who has taken my place.
