senior formal (prom)

“Senior Formal (prom)”

The shoes still shine with laughter,

sequins scatter like echoes across the floor.

Every dance step pressed into the night

as if the world itself tilted closer,

to listen to joy stitched into fabric.

 

Yet under the belt of years,

no vacant holders wait

for childhood’s tokens-

the belt is already crowded,

a museum of contrasts:

games never played,

but triumphs carried in silence,

a wishlist of absences

turned into weight.

 

So, the child returns,

carrying a night swollen with music,

a ballroom of memory, where sweetness

lingers in the air, bubbly tickles into breath.

The tension is not between loss and gain,

but between what still remains

and what insists on becoming.

 

 

 

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Reviews

[Lorry]

This certainly does have the hope of what we'd become, against the person we became feel to it and as i read it i began to think of young me against old me and what a mismatch those thoughts were!
In youth we thought we were too cool for school but in age we realised that cool never really existed and it was more of a happening than anything that could be pinned down.
Of all the phases mini me went through, I think i missed cool on every one of them, but thinking back on the youth we had with fondness, like that was what cool really was.
If we had an exam against what we thought we'd become back then, im sure most of us would be held back a year in school that we might still actually be there! 😆
Very nicely captured, of what we were and what we now are.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I love this piece and relate in my own way to this.
I still have vivid memories of my prom. I had been dating this girl for a few months before we attended prom together. We double dated for that night and for the day after, a trip to the zoo.
]The other couple wanted to kill us. WE fought two straight days and agreed after it was best we leave well enough alone.
The tension became unbearable...and what could have become didn't get a chance to.
You gave me my memories back.
j.

[Chris Shaw]

I find that memories with age become more golden. I have a treasure chest spanning a lifetime. They make me smile, like a child would with a new toy.

Lovely poem Freds.

Chris

[redd Brick Keshner]

They do tend to be golden! Thanks, Chris🙏🏻🕊️
Freds