Restless Dreams of Youth

Moorestown Mall _{(Credit: Secure_Resolution770 on Reddit)}

Inspired by “Kids (Reprise)” by The Midnight.

The dying days of summer recall restless dreams of youth,
When we were told by movies and television and tales of old,
Of how we would idle and loiter after dark, in an endless, neon-lit marketplace,
Causing harmless trouble on polished floors under glass skylights,
Listening to tinny pop music coupled with the dull buzzing of vending machines,
Backed up by the smell of chlorinated water gurgling from fountains.
Of course, those were someone else’s dreams, someone else’s childhood.

Now, the nights with friends are all too far strung out,
Too consumed by the “real world” to find our simple joys.
Work can wait every now and then. Nights like that are good for the soul
Those are the nights we remember for years to come.
Not the exhaustion of the next morning
Or the piles of paperwork still sitting on our desks.

Once these nights were all we had,
Conversations over apple beignets with ice cream.
Feels like a thousand years ago.
I feel so old.
The world’s moving too fast these days. 
Hard to keep up with everything, 
and by the time you do, you’ve been out and replaced anyways
Sooner or later we all have to slow down,
And we’re forced to reckon with our history 
And ask ourselves where do we go next.

The years march on, and suddenly we can’t recall every moment we’ve lived.
At some point, there are just too many memories.
The best we can do is to remember the nights we felt like children again,
And we live out the dreams we were always meant to have.