You only pass a moment once,

you can only look back

though pictures and memories,

floating obscurely through the mind,

as time marches on relentlessly

and innocence fades away.

Until the day years later

that you stumble upon the past,

the yellowed photographs

of times long since gone,

hidden away in boxes and dust,

transporting your thoughts

to a summer’s day of the past,

where you jump from a dock

into the ice cool lake below

as the sun sets behind the mountains,

and you hear the laughter

of friends you’d forgotten,

until you resurface

to find yourself

alone with your memories.