Decade

What are ten years?

Are they minutes?

Hours?

Weeks?

Months?

Or are they memories,

Memories that can never and shall never be again?

Is a decade a grain of sand in an hourglass,

Or is it a puzzle piece to the world?

Are the passing years contained in the inches added to children’s frames,

Or the contests lost and the concerts given?

I cannot grasp this.

I cannot wrap my mind around the concept of a decade.

Time running on…

Life moving forward and grinding to a halt…

Love. Despair. Joy. Pain.

Life, trying to be contained in a single moment,

A moment that suddenly becomes years.

Ten years.

People call it a decade, to make it sound shorter,

More manageable.

Can time ever be managed?

I do know this:

A decade can never be regained.

Those ten long, short years,

A decade,

Has disappeared on the wind.

It is utterly lost, swept away down the river.

And you’ve missed it.

You’ve missed it all.

You’ve missed the inches, the concerts, the love, despair, joy, pain,

and growth.

You’ve missed the memories.

I would pity you, if you wanted it.

But you don’t.

You don’t understand the concept of a decade.

That’s all right, neither do I.

But these years, these passing, flowing puzzle pieces,

Refuse to be contained.

I won’t pity you.

It was your choice.

What is a decade?

I don’t know, but I do know this:

It’s been as short as a summer,

As long as forever,

And I know that I have the memories.

That’s enough for me.