as I enter the small death of winter, slip into the darkness of its aging, aching skin I find that those memories of long ago days remain, lingering still, somewhere in the shadowy corners of these dust covered dreams buried where my darkest secrets are kept in the growing distances I keep as close as the illusion of time and youth and your aging ghost to remind me we were all innocent once and wild and raging and lost too soon to the quiet sleep of the forgotten seasons within us