Looking at photos,
It feels odd, like a life I don’t remember.
I search for memories,
Digging through a blurred archive,
Hoping to find a moment
To take me back to what once was.

But I feel lost, so lost.
Searching for a little girl
Whose face resembles mine.
She feels distant, unfamiliar,
A stranger I’m supposed to know.
Yet somehow, she quiets me.

Maybe in another life . . .
Our smiles aren’t the same,
Nor are our eyes.
Perhaps her world was brighter,
Her burdens fewer.

They tell me she is me,
But I don’t ever remember being a child.

I want so badly to believe,
believe that a day once existed
When I didn’t feel this way,
When joy wasn’t heavy,
And time wasn’t a thief.

But I can’t find the catalog of days.
It’s as though the pages have been torn,
The ink faded,
Leaving only hollow spaces
Where memories should live.

The little girl in the photo smiles at me,
And I whisper, I wish I knew you.
But the truth is,
I don’t.

Maybe she was a part of me once,
But somewhere along the way,
I lost her.
Her laughter slipped through my fingers,
Her innocence buried in the years
I learned to survive.

I wonder if she misses me,
If she ever reaches for me
From the corners of my mind.
But I fear she’s gone,
And I don’t think I can ever find her. Still, her eyes linger
Quiet, questioning,
As if asking me to try.