nostalgia in sonnet form

it starts with the feeling at the end of a teen movie,

tv quiz show questions that you wish you didn’t know the answer to,

uneasy smiles, puckered when the lemons of love turn sour -

like the second novel in a trilogy, we still go on.

the flowers in the vase become something macabre;

yellow sun tricks parchment petals into forgetting colour.

like library books well overdue, quickly stamped with ‘removed’ -

it’s easier to take things out than return them.

slice by slice. bite by bite. day by day.

warm afternoons and pillow fights and cycle lanes are erased.

flakes of rubber stain the page grey as the effort goes awry -

this is what happens when sweetness is left in the sun.

the creases in the paper remain when it’s glued in a different book:

there will be moments where it all unfolds, my love.