Goodbye To the Colorful Past

I miss the colorful past. I remember how it would blow past me, encompass my entire being. Its hues gave me hope, made my chest swell with glee when the pure lights danced upon my fingertips. Until everything changed. It was when it turned into different shades of grey. When the memories created despair instead of joy. They were drug along my skin, deeper and deeper, leaving big, bloody gashes that wouldn't heal. My retired dreams, dead right in front of me. The dreams that had been reality, now faded into my lifeless corpse. My dreams, they were snatched away along with the freedom to be with them. It was when the sickness spread among us, when we quarantined to save ourselves, that I grasped onto my perfect actuality, desperate to keep it safe, conserve it, but it slipped through my fingers. And so I was alone again. Those dreams died out. Dreams of real friendship. Dreams of belonging. Dreams of recently-found normalcy. Dead, disrupted, dysfunctional dreams. My painfully perfect, dreamy, recently retired reality. The colorful, hopeful, clear past is now ash that blows past me, pieces tangling themselves into my hair, bringing sharp pain instead of bittersweet hope. Where did the blissful life go? Will she return or is she gone? Will she truly be dead forever? Everything is bland now, both memories and body. We are lifeless. I miss the colorful past.