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Timeless Longing

 Father Time waits at the door,

Old memories slipping through the back,

Taking another year with you—

A silent, fleeting track.


Two years have passed, yet still I count,

Number three, waiting for the door to open,

2026 arrives with secrets unknown,

Life’s cloth unfurled, unspoken.


The world spins faster than a blink,

As we bid farewell to twenty-five,

Regrets and tears, they need to sink,

A new dawn begins to arrive.


Leave here with my watch, I plead,

Spin it back to twenty-one,

Live again that joyful deed,

When we had each other, then and gone.


We danced in plans for futures bright,

So unknown, yet so near,

Close to you in fleeting light,

Fading slowly, I fear.


Time on this clock is crawling,

Into the new year’s haze,

You’re slipping away, softly falling,

Eyes clouded with a thousand days.


Return me to that clarity,

To twenty-one’s embrace,

Could I change our destiny,

If I knew then what I face?


Many ask, in silent plea,

Father Time, take us back,

Don’t let ripples in the sea

Write our future’s track.


The past was safe, a gentle shore,

If only we’d see ahead,

You left me aching, wanting more,

A wound that’s never shed.


Two years past, yet still I mourn,

Knowing your final date,

My mind still plans your farewell dawn,

A love I cannot recreate.


Dragging feet into twenty-six,

A wish to turn back the clock,

Not in death, but in the mix,

To find that long-lost talk.


Just take us back, I plead once more,

Right to the start, the tender time,

Where love was ours to hold and soar—

In that moment, so sublime.


Katherine Eileen Dowling


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