ultraviolet nostalgia.

It is Lorde's Buzz cut,

Kawhi's buzzer beater season.

I am relapsing into this place where time holds its breath,

it cannot be displaced,

submerging itself into cool, unchanging waters.

Seconds are no more linear

than the gravel path behind the deserted playground is smooth

If there was ever a countdown around here

it is the blinking cross walk,

or maybe it's the anticlimactic arrival of a moment,

how the leaves still change colour as projected

and the man across the road still walks his golden retriever

on Friday evenings.

No championships at stake around here.

No prolific lyricism to narrate the silence.

This is where I have come to write this song.

If there was ever a countdown echoing through these trees,

it is the child playing hide and seek.

I don't know when we began to lose sight of the things we search for

and we hunt for these apparitions in earnest,

in the strangest of places

Did I just spend the afternoon on my bike?

Or is my stomach simply aching for satiety

that always remains within fingertips away.

Minutes tumble backwards,

or is it forwards?

Because aren't we always counting towards the days of something better,

or counting down the days we still have the fortune of proclaiming the "good ones"

while we are still here,

only vaguely present.

We have become wary of what this is,

farewells and welcomes wrapped into one

There is this perfect suburban synchronicity,

routine infiltrated by meandering conversations,

lacking the anonymity of big cities

but somehow still finding yourself disappearing into the mundane palette

of chalk marked sidewalks,

basketball hoops on driveways,

a relic of a kid's stunted declarations of NBA ambitions.

I used to hear someone practice their drums in their garage

but the snare doesn't snap at the sounds of my feet on the pavement any longer.

I hardly cut my knees open on the concrete the way I used to.

When did I learn to stop tripping at my surroundings?

Maybe it was when I stopped being in awe of it.