Nine Years; Have You Still Got Your Favorite Bowl?

The Past.
The younger self.

It is insane how much a person can change in just a few years.
Nine, to be exact.

Nine years.
Nine. Whole. Years.

It sounds like a lot, 
but it really isn't.

What's the last thing you remember?
Yesterday, or a year ago, or maybe five?

You can still feel the emotions, see what was happening:
Staying after school to play in the playground with another kid whose parents had yet to come,
despite your mother wanting to leave and go home.

Waiting at a grandparents' house, staring at the TV and thinking: "It'll be ten minutes and then I have to have a shower."

Feeding seagulls only to be scolded by teachers and tormented by peers.

It still feels real, relevant, 
and yet it's so far but so, so close.

You could almost reach out and touch it - 
the grass,
the cat,
your favorite bowl that looked like an ice cream cone.

But yet, 
here we are; 
afraid of going outside,
the cat dead for a couple of years now,
the favorite bowl gone, lost.

Nine years, and so much has changed.