Portals

I returned to my old stomping ground,
to the places I once called home,
to the places where I at felt at home,
to a place where I felt safe and felt
I belonged to.

But then things changed, people changed,
time passed and those people I met and befriended
changed and from friends we became mere strangers
And it became a place where I knew I did not belong.

So I decided to leave, leave all that I knew and loved,
for I knew that it was these places and people
that had changed, I had stayed the same,
and the old adage of 'given time, people and things change',
applied to an extent that I felt myself in an alien environment.

After time passed, countless thoughts of returning,
like a hunger pain that is not sated filled me,
I often wondered if I was dreaming and if I returned,
everything would be how I knew it to be.
I was fooling myself, like a child unwilling to let go
of a futile dream that bears no effect.

I returned and found things were so very different,
I tried, I stayed, but after a few days, I saw what I didn't want to see,
Things change, people change, not how you want them to.
And I left again, this time for good.