The Years Don’t Come Back

The years don’t come back.

A spreadsheet can tell me
that the debt was fifty,
then forty,
then thirty-three.

It can draw a neat descending line,
a victory measured in red figures
growing smaller each month.

But the spreadsheet cannot tell me
what happened in those years.

It does not know that holiday,
or that reunion,
or that celebration.

It does not know the sound
of friends gathering themselves
before the first toast.

It does not know a conversation
that lasted too long in a café,
or a rainy street wandered for no reason,
or the moment a stranger became someone important.

The years don’t come back.

There are voices that say:
suffer now,
live later.

As though life were a reward
kept in a locked cupboard,
to be opened only when the final balance
reaches zero.

But later is a country
none of us are guaranteed to reach.

People always have plans
for years they never see.

A pension statement grows.
A debt balance shrinks.
A calendar fills and empties.

And all the while,
the years keep moving.

So I paid what I could.

I cleared what I could.

I fought the arithmetic
without surrendering the music.

I carried the debt,
but I carried on dancing.

I travelled.
I loved.
I stood in old haunts.
I watched unfamiliar sunsets.
I built a career.
I built a life.

Not because debt did not matter.

Because life mattered too.

One day,
perhaps,
the final loan will vanish.

The overdraft will close.
The card balance will read zero.
The spreadsheet will finally fall silent.

And when that day comes,
I hope I do not simply possess
a cleaner balance sheet.

I hope I possess the memory
of years that were lived.

For the debt can be repaid.

The years do not come back.