Page 90 - Labyrinth--Suburban Stardust

I remember the long hours Spent in the sun with
My rough and dirty hands That carried me up trees and Dug rainwater canals
My skin forever bruised and scraped From the bushes and twigs
I paraded through
Crisp and tender air Cradled me in the night And filled my lungs
A smell so sweet
Would come to me and
I would revel in the scent
Beneath the laughing trees
Whom have long forgotten my name
But I also remember a break
A tear in my years
I remember that sweet air Weaving through angry voices And returning to me sour
The walls shrunk and locked me in Where I would sit to wait
While heavy words blackened my lungs
Watched by my parents’ waiting eye I would run through the
Sharp wood chips
Carving into my toes
And jump for the monkey bar
That I couldn’t quite reach
And tears staining my cheeks
When my fingers could only brush the cold metal
But as the years passed
I shaped into something
That kept me alive
The will to forget
Words and the chill of
The monkey bar’s metal
Faded into a shallow memory That I crushed with my bare feet
Poet: Amanda Hoeksma