A Mind That Wanders Poem by Millie Fraser

When I'm lonely and it's quiet with only my breathing hushing in my lungs and my heart beating the blood around my body, making it rush in my ears,
I think about all the people who have come and gone in my life.
Friends and family that I miss, some who I know I will see soon,
Some I will see sometime in the future,
Some I hope very much to see again one day,
And some that I fear are lost to me forever, visible to me only through distant memories of days long gone.
I think about the people that I've hurt, never with intention,
But wounded all the same.
Images of ex lovers sift through my mind,
All caught in some moment that for some reason flashes more clearly than the others, as if frozen in time.
I sometimes wish that I couldn't see these pictures,
The moments when we shouted, or even the ones when we laughed and loved.
I wish I could see them as they are now, happy in their life that does not contain me.
The past can have a way of making me miss the present.
I keep looking back through old photographs instead of clicking new shots.
I am constantly surprised how fast time does tick by, and I do wonder what life has for me.
Will I make my own luck or will it fall at my bare feet or maybe even pass me by completely.
I am often reminded how young I still am, although I can sometimes become as fearful as a woman much older than my years.
Fearful of my bones becoming weak and scared that my own shadow will trip me up.
I wish these fears would go away, pack them up along with old memories and photographs that make me cry and leave them in a box on the side of a road that I have no reason to ever go down again.
I imagine the box to be gnawed at by animals,
Half dragged across the tarmac by a hungry fox.
Then the rain will come down, and tear at the box and everything it contains.
Finally a lorry driver speeds down the road, faster than usual because he's worked a double shift and he's hungry too and wants to get home to his wife.
The wheels hit the remains of my spilled belongings,
Crushing what is left and scattering the dust into the sunlight that came after the rain.
I imagine the pieces catching in the light, sparkling for just a moment, before falling and becoming lost forever.