Phantom Limb of Time

The scent of rain on hot asphalt, unearths a ghost of childhood summers, barefoot and reckless. A melody drifts from a passing car, a forgotten soundtrack to teenage dreams, suddenly vivid, almost touchable. The chipped porcelain of a teacup, held in my grandmother's frail hands, now warms my own, a phantom heat. These fragments, shards of a shattered mirror, reflecting moments that no longer are, yet pulse with a strange, persistent life. Is it a longing for innocence lost? A yearning for the untainted promise the future once held? Or is it simply the heart's quiet ache for what was, a comfortable familiarity in the face of relentless now? This bittersweet ache, a phantom limb of time, forever reaching for what cannot be held. ©bfa042125