Then Along You Came
3rd August 2022

Before… I never thought to think,
simple days, gone in a blink,
football cards and school yard games,
everything, always and forever,
…then along you came.

I am still not sure when you arrived,
amongst teenage heartbreak, you were perhaps contrived,
or unthoughtful comments, made in jest,
truths hard to hear, by friends expressed.

Maybe you crept in, under growing self-doubt,
fed on the attention I sought, could not live without,
all I know is at some stage, when looking back inside,
there you were, in place of my innocence ...which had died.

And with you came others, I did not invite,
dark friends replacing, day with night,
now it seems a battle we constantly wage,
balancing pills and emotions, the world in a rage.

I know enough that it was not always this way,
but in this dystopian future, our beds they now lay,
I cry a tear sometimes, for that that I knew,
for the child who lived here, whose time became due.

Prompt: Then You Came Along.
.

Morning view,
Mt Bogong, Australia.