Before-Times

[Andrea]

Before-Times

I have just removed the before-time pictures,
the snapshots of the easier, carefree times;
Parts of a life I must leave,
to carry on into the later-times

The before-times pictures where painfully removed,
tape clinically pulled off the backs,
and I placed them into a black folder,
which was hidden away in a drawer.

They are gone, eradicated, expelled.
And I've discovered; Gone is a very final thing,
there is no almost-gone, or even half-gone,
it is either here, or it isn't.

The before times are now BC,
(thats before college you idiots)
And the later-times wil be After,
but for now I'm in the in-between times.

And I've found I don't quite like it.

The in-betweens are full of Misery.
The Misery of waiting, of saying goodbye,
of indecision, of letting go,
And of wishing life would go back to the before-times.

But there is no going back to the before-times,
there is only the muddling through the in-betweens,
and of wondering about the later-times.
And hoping, that just perhaps, the later-times may be as well as the before-times.

For now I've taken back a few of my before-times pictures,
In the spirit of remembrance, and of times passionately loved, but long gone.