Yearbook

These times fly by
A blur of color on the Bullet Train
My surroundings change on the inside as well as outside
But I’m too focused on the window,
The exterior.

My friends are next to me
And I unknowingly ignore them all
Too focused on what’s out there
Then what’s waiting for me at home
A shout in my ear I just can’t hear.

The whispers around me insist I’ve changed
That ambition made me leave my friends behind
Your voice, the quietest of them all
And also closest to me.

Then something’s placed on my lap
A last warm touch before it and the voices
Fade away to cold
I tear my gaze away from the window.

And there it lies
My yearbook.

My yearbook
Long forgotten memories preserved
In a piece of paper
Just one piece of cheap paper.

Memories
I couldn’t possibly keep in my ambitious mind.
And that ambition’s cost much more
Than the $3 for the yearbook.

I can't help but glance around
Even though everyone's long since gone
Whose handed this to me?

But no one’s there
I’m alone on this train to nowhere
The warm friends that surrounded me
Just shadows and whispers on the wall
Just shadows and whispers.

So I open the faded, cracking paper
I don’t remember being yellow
Pristine white corrupted
By my selfishness
How long have I been just staring out the window?

And there
First page, written in my yearbook,
Years not so long ago,
(But countless to me)
You had put:
You rock; don’t change

And a smiley face.

And in that instance
The yearbook I held
Turned to dust.