Time Doesn't Flow Backwards

Black and white photographs,

All the places where we'd been,

All the sights that we had seen.

Albums with black pages

And little white corners 

Holding faded images.

Is it cliche to see 

our little family 

And wonder where they'd gone?

What happened to them?

A schism in our lives,

A chasm between before and after,

That had to be jumped over,

From what had been to what would be.

Impossible to return. 

A little girl sitting on a bench

In a hallway with green and grey tiles

Too young to go with her parents 

To see her brother 

in the isolation ward.

What was that, and why?

Standing in the parking lot.

Look, he's waving from the window.

She could only see a shadow. 

Now it's all a blur.

A seismic shift

Pulling the floor out beneath them. 

A pencil sketch of happiness crossed out with ink.

Nothing was ever the same.

Her parents fighting viciously,

Digging where the bodies lay.

Would it ever stop?

Too young to grow up,

Accepting without understanding, 

And in the end,

Disillusionment.

Half-smiling at happy endings.

Not the way she used to be.