Don't Look Back

(written while reading the Bible
and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut)

The thought of letting him go beats
around in my head like atoms
gaining speed. The pressure
is almost more than I can take.

I need to move on
because there is no life
in the past, only memories.
And trying to squeeze life
from a memory is like trying
to recreate the taste of apple pie
in your mouth.

Lot's wife couldn't stop looking
back at her life in Sodom and Gomorrah.
She turned into a pillar of salt.

And the farmer with his hand
to the plow couldn't make
a straight path.
He kept looking back.

It's time to say goodbye and look
forward to the newness of life
because "people aren't supposed to look back.
I'm certainly not going to do it anymore."