How much is lost?

Is it the words or the writing
that are extensions of the self?
Because I can't quite tell if
the phrases that I'm reading
represent what I really felt.

The question I can never pull
from my mind's stuck drawer
is one concerning who we are
compared to people we once were
and if we become more.

If I turned the pages backward,
revealing fresh what's been before
could I look into a mirror
by looking through the keyhole
of my younger bedroom door?

I'm not sure if I'll ever grasp
what all goes into growing.
But there's one thing that I know
and that's that the self's
not static but it's flowing.

green city bench

he leans back in his long plaid jacket
and watches the traffic as it practically
melts down the blacktop street
in the summertime heat
that knocked him off of his feet
and keeps him fixed to his seat
where he listens to heatwaves glisten
and his friends are all missin'
the barely audible brilliance
of the millions of miniscule breaths
breaking forth from lungs of leaves
that cling to the trees
as they try to not freeze
in the summertime breeze.