Each time I’m in
or travel through
this place
I’m briefly transported to the past
and I have to wear
and then discard
the pain.
The tracks remain the same
straight lines through a neighborhood
cut through my heart
cut through my childhood.
A life gone too soon
a childhood ended too early
a home abandoned
a family changed.
To visit is to feel it
and to feel it
is to live it
and to live it
is too much
on some days.
Other days it is just
a grayed out memory
of a time
before now.