Painful Nostalgia

It's when the air conditioning turns on full blast and all you can smell is memory.

It's a dusty attic filled with toys, albums and feelings bittersweet.

It's the bad food eaten at a rest stop in between destinations.

Rooting for the raindrops as they race each other down the windshield, waiting for the storm to pass.

Loving that storm, yet still jumping at the lightning and thunder.

A song not played in years coming on the radio and still remembering every single lyric.

It's crying endlessly for a girl who will never know it but smiling again when you realize it doesn't hurt as much as it did before.

Daydreaming about running away but making yourself look back and staying.

Finding a person to talk to after years of talking to walls, then having that taken from you.

It's heard in the church bells that used to sound like music, now it's just an echo of something lost. It causes a headache.

It's tangled in with the shame that won't go away.