Universal

I am in the place of my happiest memories,

but I am there with Them, and not You.

I see a map of all the stops on the way,

the moments I saw in dreary blinks

as I slept through what I didn't want to remember.

And now I'm here, and it's too late to say no,

so I drift through more moments with more dreary blinks.

I let it all pass me by like another dream,

because I want it to be a dream,

and I wait for the joy of trying again.

Notes: I grew up going to the Universal and Disney parks for vacation over my spring breaks, though it happened more sparsely once I was in my teens. Universal holds a special place in my heart, and I requested that my parents take me there one more time as a college graduation gift. when that time rolled around, however, COVID lockdowns were in place, and I realized that any joy I could have here would be taken away by the fact that my bio mom was present, already making demands about how it was going to go.

used to believe that my dreams were meaningful in a cosmic sense, and I often made decisions based on the "predictions" I saw in them. it was a dream where I had my new friends around me as we walked towards the Islands of Adventure gates that pushed me to foster a deeper friendship with them, which eventually gave me the strength to cut my bio mom out of my life forever once I had moved out of my parents' house. the trip with my biological family never happened, but I still sometimes dream of what could've been.