Everything Has Changed

by Enewman2010

i drive down old familiar roads
nostalgia my guide in the passenger seat,
I am struck by how much has changed
but also how much has stayed the same

i’m not the same kid that frequented these streets
the one singing to the radio
with fair weather friends of the past

no, i have been aged by experience
by heartbreak and happenstance
still singing to the same songs
but with less abandon

i drive down old familiar roads
but the familiar is a stranger
to the person i’ve become

how did i get here?
i wonder, as the sadness mixes
with the bitter sweet taste of what used to be

what used to feel so certain
has lost its permanence.
i used to be so sure
but somehow, i’ve lost myself in the twists and the turns

i’m no longer a skilled navigator
of the roads that map my past
i’m a tourist in this place
in search of direction in a place i no longer know