Harken back to yesteryear:
The joys of childhood,
The pangs of adolescence.

Revel and frolic in your visions:
Superheroes dashing about the yard,
Climbing trees that were skyscrapers.

Relive and recoil at your nightmares:
A tender note; rejected.
Peals of laughter as schoolwork is sent scattered.

As you travel back in time,
The good gets better.
The bad gets worse.

We recraft our memories each time we recall them.
Did you never scrape your knees on those trees?
Did no one ever love you back?

Memories are malleable.
We can change them.
Though they depict the past,
They are not written in stone.

Prompt: write a poem that explores the theme of “memory.”
Requester: ChatGPT pretending to be a college Creative Writing professor.
Request method: ChatGPT
Author is Sean Prunka
Copyright 2023 Sean Prunka. All rights reserved.

Author notes: I needed to get back into writing, so I’m going to be using ChatGPT citing like a college professor to give me “assignments”. I’m also giving back any First Draft copy I write for feedback. This “professor” is a bit too lenient, to be honest, but the feedback is enough to help me unbreak ruts and make edits, even when it isn’t accurate or consistent.