Copper Steeples

Some days feel like funerals for memories. Ordinary things become drenched in heartbreaking poignancy; the way copper steeples oxidize leaving the most perfect turquoise patina, how the wind flutters a line of flags lining your neighborhood streets like rippling jib sails, two trees on opposite sides of a street so large their branches merge connecting my old sidewalk to the one I used to look out onto.
I try to go back but everything’s changed. Things change. But the change offends the ache and makes me angry. Even the landscape of my memory changes; entire urban neighborhoods erected upon vacant lots and flirtatious construction boys dancing to my music. Even the most immutable elements of my memories change; buying new t-shirts, growing up, how dare they?
They say the more things change the more they stay the same. Sometimes it just feels like the longer you stay the more they change.