Time, it's an idea that everything revolves around, yet it is so hard to grasp. One minute we are celebrating our 6th birthday and the next we are graduating high school. Years go by but it feels like hours, minutes, seconds. I spend a lot of my time thinking about what I would do if I could just have a little more time. If I could just have five more minutes.

* * *

Eight years old.

The woods outside of my house became a universe of fiction versus reality.

Access codes to get, do not dare to enter.

Jumping across lakes of lava and climbing Giants to view the kingdom,

we were unstoppable.

If only I could have five more minutes.

Eleven years old.

February 9th; It's snowing.

I am mesmerized as they sing "Happy Birthday."

We spend too much time outside because snow isn't something we are used to.

A year of life written in the snow.

A year that would soon pass.

If only I could have five more minutes.

Thirteen Years Old.

We walk to the creek at the end of Magic Drive.

We skip rocks while we talk about whatever it is teenagers talk about.

"Things will never change," we say.

We didn't know that would be the last time we would all walk down to that creek together.

If only I could have five more minutes.

Fifteen years old.

Wishing the next four years would pass as soon as they came.

New place, but same people.

Cheering from crowded football stands,

Friday nights made us one.

Our laughs still echo down the crowded hallways,

With memories engraved in the stone walls.

If only I could have five more minutes.

18 years old.

Sitting in a coffee shop 20 minutes from town.

We talk about Graduation and how even though I would be leaving, I wouldn't be leaving.

We talk about heartbreaks and the cute boy sitting a few tables away.

Reminiscing on the two years worth of memories made in this corner booth.

We cried, laughed, remembered.

If only I could have five more minutes.

19 years old

It's been a few months since I have been home now.

My mother asks me to stay as I pack my bags to leave.

We both know I can't stay.

My father fills my tank up and hands me a folded bill.

"Don't spend it all in one place," he says.

I embrace my little sister one last time before closing the car door.

More than all of the stars my sweet, sweet girl.

If only I could have five more minutes.

20 years old.

A phone call from home.

Reading in a coffee shop.

Writing under dim lights.

Sun sets on the top of parking garages.

Concerts that end too soon.

If only.

If only I could have five more minutes.