Hickory, sycamores

Shagbark and walnut

Sturdy strong and stiff

Swaying in the breeze, lifting leaves of fall

A foggy memory of my childhood

 

My whole life, in that damned house

 

Presently I feel fine, like I’ve forgotten.

The endless, unsupervised days outside.

Garden boxes with little, red, painted handprints are gone.

Remembering the days outside, contrasting to now. 

Where I barely leave my room.

 

In the past, I would venture outside 

 An explorer 

 Escaping reality. 

 

I remember 

 

The creek,

The flaking blue paint on the deck posts

Plastic gardening tools 

The no-trespassing signs

Abandoned junkyard, with rusty cars and trucks, 

chock-full of old furniture

Animal prints in the mud, 

the same mud that would speckle my legs and clothes,

Color of the tree bark and English breakfast, my hair and eyes. 

Gillmering with the hardy rings of wood.  

Stained shirt 

After summer school, in the deep woods, 

A wild child, that ran in streams and meadows, 

Down into marshes and tall, whipping reeds

 

But a wild child can’t be wild or a child forever.

Stuck in school or the house,

Her memories flooded with the white cans with blue and gold letters

The scent of stale yeast filled her nose.

The mountain-high piles that towered over my head.

 

The staircase where my mother wept,

Small arms encasing her to console,

A role to fill, the protector. 

A fighter, who wouldn’t back down.

 

When the stairs were remodeled, the carpet striped,  furniture replaced and walls repainted. 

Pain and grief, still stuck like spears in my soul.

Part of me that will always be broken. 

 

A wild child alone in the trees, 

Wild, wild eyes staring back at me, 

Crazed and dim, With pain and pressure of a life

 that never wished to live.

Clutching a can, like the last thing on earth.

After all the time passed, I still find myself stuck in the brush, 

 

Back behind the hickories.