Yearning

• Chloe Lukman, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2022

One half of a necklace, she has the other.
(At least, I assume she has still has it.)
A magnet on my fridge, coming from a place
I have once been and will never return to.

A dusty shelf filled with stuffed animals,
Wishing they can be loved again.
I drive past a place I once called home,
But somebody else lives there now.

Hallways I’ve walked a thousand times
That I no longer recognise.
I grasp the rough serrated edges of the past,
But somehow I can’t let go.

Memories laced with bittersweet desire,
Snapshots of time framed in nostalgia,
I carefully try to lock them in a box,
But still, I can’t stop pieces falling out.