Page 22 - TheBridge_Vol16
P. 22
SPIDER WEBS
David B. Orten
There was a time before all of this, I am sure and beautiful, covered from floor to ceiling
of it. with Power Rangers posters, must have been
painted over years ago; their now-gray surface
A time when the reds were red, and the peels and cracks in random places. I can almost
blues were blue. A time of vibrancy, before see the blue behind them, can almost identify
everything drowned in hues of gray. There where pictures had hung and poorly-drawn
was a time when your smile warmed the stick figures were scrawled, where a part of my
air around you, a time before I wanted to almost happy childhood was spent.
punch your teeth in.
I try to let these images fade from my mind
There was a time when you held me, a tiny, like passing thunder clouds, think to myself
wide-eyed baby, vulnerable yet attentive in that somewhere behind all that gray is a
your soft, loving arms. I don’t remember vibrant, blue sky full of all that hope and life
the way the sun glowed off of your beautiful that I remember.
blonde hair, but I am sure that it must have.
I don’t recall the soft kisses you left on my I should tell you now that despite it all, I
forehead but I am sure they, too, were there. still love you. I know that you tried—that, in
If I try hard enough I can almost feel their your own twisted way, you are still trying.
warmth on my face, slowly burning away So I do love you.
into the ether.
At first, I don’t think too much about the
Walking up the stairs of your house, I remember overflowing bathtub I see as I walk through
when I was only a child, running up the same the bathroom. Perhaps one of the kids
steps after school with boyish anticipation, turned it on while playing—surely, you
eager to show you all the work I had done would not have forgotten about it.
during that school day. I don’t remember your
reaction to my proud work, but I am sure that The water trickles through cracks in the
it must have been one of adoration and smiles, floor, finding rotted pits between the tiles
the kind of thing you see in the movies. Perhaps to take refuge in. Over time it will further
you remember, Mom? the home’s decay, rot it from the inside
out, make it crumble on top its aging
The house is nothing like I remember. The foundations. Looking into the overfilled
liveliness, the warmth, the distinct air of tub, I see myself reflected in the irregular
belonging that hallmarks one’s home has rippling of the bathwater.
vanished, stolen from my childhood home
by time and the unfair decay of innocence— I recognize the reflection at first, but with
much like you were. The walls, once blue each tiny wave I see my face changing, skin
10 | The Bridge Vol. XVI | 11
