The Grass is Greener in 2009

To 2009,

You’re holding me. Carefully, I hope. In a cradle. The young, knee-scraped, crooked-toothed version of me. Can I speak to her? To me? I have something to ask of her. To tell myself.

I don’t know how else to get to her. I’ve been trying, searching. And I realised you’ve got her, 2009. It came to me like a gasp, a startling awake. Suddenly, I could see her, trapped between January and December. Smiling, laughing, crying; bare feet sticking to a linoleum floor, knees stinging and stained grass-green, hands blistered from the sun-hot monkey bars. Smiling, laughing, crying. Looping, over and over. Stuck in the same memories. So, please, could you show her this letter?

To me, if you’re reading this. Where did it all go? That golden film lens that coated everything? That bright, sparking mind that ticked all day, almost drove us mad? Remember when we felt pulled to things, like our heart was outside our ribs, reaching out, grabbing, latching? Remember how it always felt like there was a door left open, sunlight spilling in?

How was it that the world was so much closer to us, back then, but everything felt so big, expansive? Reach out, touch the leaves, smell the detergent on the clothes hanging on the line, feel a raindrop land on your forehead and slide all the way down to your chin. Everything a breath away.

But the sky felt unreachable, every street stretched on forever, each cracked-open window could send you climbing out into an ocean, an abyss, out to space.

It was all poetry.

Where has that gone? Vines grow outside my window, the sun falls through the gaps, onto my desk, my hands, in speckles. Isn’t that poetic? But I feel like I’m looking at it all from underwater, from a separated room, elsewhere, with my face pressed against the glass. I miss when I could feel myself right up behind my eyes.

Do you know how I can be you again? Do you think you could leave 2009 and come meet me? I know it’s possible, because I feel you there, sometimes. I step out and the reel stutters and suddenly I’m seeing everything through your eyes. It all takes on a different shape, colour, a softer edge. You’re right there, behind my face. Slipped through a gap in December, fell into me. I can almost hear you breathing.

It's only for a second, but it really does change everything.

To 2009, can we make it happen? Please write me back, show me a sign. Give me, the back-then me, a bigger gap to fall through. I know we can make it work, and that we’ll find poetry once more.

But if we can’t make it work, could you just keep holding me gently?

Yours truly,

Me, in 2023.