PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Absent-mindedly, I picked up the crumpled receipt out of my pocket and let it fall to the ground. It was Tuesday evening, that night, an early June cool spring. My eleven- year-old brother was in the middle of his band recital there, at Tootin Hills Elementary. I had gotten off work, and thought hard about that morning. It was thick on my mind, the episode between Courtney and I had run through.



I followed my dad into the auditorium, where he stopped at the windows to talk to a friend of the family, Mr. Jenks. He was a photographer, here to film his daughter’s violin solo. I was am thinking of becoming his assistant during the summer, if the opportunity was available, and if I find the time. Mr. Jenks was a recovering heroin addict and alcoholic, which I was sure creates many family issues for him. I greeted him and withdrew my attention promptly.



After going inside to greet my mother, I felt the fuzzy, heavy-heated stench of human mass inside the cafa-gym-atorium. I soon left and decided to take a walk. The wind felt alive, the ghosts felt haunting. I strolled around the front of the recess yard, thinking of her, that beautiful night one year ago to the day, to the sullen moment. It seemed to snatch me out of the present, and suspend me in the mid-air of memory. I reached the tether ball pole and spun my body around it like a planet orbiting its sun. I took hold of the dangling ball and threw it. The ball swung around as if trying to evade me. I grabbed the ball from the air and broke its path, and sung it back around the pole. I dodged professionally from it, feeling my karate skills shift weight deep in me.  



I soon became bored and started up a steady stroll again. I approached the swings, and being swiftly swept by that oh, so real memory. I sat down in the palm of the swing, and leaned forward as its joints groaned with a rash-like rust. It squeaked like a door to the most vivid details of that vague memory. I could see her standing in front of me, holding my face to her chest, breath rising steady and with drawn. It was like a tide slowly sweeping up the beach, and soon exhaling. Her fingers tangled intricately through my hair like the dandelions of a picture-perfect meadow, spreading their pollen, perfectly integrated with the straw and grass. My finger fell slowly into the hole on the side of her worn-out jeans, slowly rubbing her hip. Oh, how incredibly smooth she was. It’s one of many things that made her oh, so irresistible, the flawlessly-smooth skin.



The spell soon staled, broken by the voice of little kids approaching. I lifted out of the swing and continued on, planning now to visit every ghost, and perhaps to be visited by more. I headed back the way I came, digging shallow cavities into the sand as I went. I began to wonder about our footsteps together, Courtney and I. It was like signing our name, almost, for others to notice. It was like our feet leaving graffiti behind, four footprints among hundreds. I began to idly wonder how many thousands, maybe millions of feet have left ours indecipherable since we took those steps, one year ago, exactly. It was a sort of a silly thought for a boy my age, bit it stuck out to me at the time. It seemed to draw out vividly how far we’ve come over the year, how many tracks we’ve left behind.



The swings were at the far end of the playground, and I now made my way back the way I came, towards the jungle gym. I climbed the steps up the strange structure, as I did with Kayla. I remembered the nosey children around us, and how we joked about their interest in our budding romance. I sat down in the sheltered little tower in front of the top of a tube slide. I remember her and I, together as we sat, legs spread as if we were used to the position, She seems shy about the sullen seriousness, realizing the bleak reality of erotica, spread like incense smoke, thickening the air, blooming like a full-grown lily in a lonely garden. It was real, within that holy moment, and I embraced the memory of it in the palms of my mind. How I wished so much to hold her in my arms, right then, to whisper ever so soft how I loved her so. How I yearned to feel her sweet presence around me. It became too intense for me, and I got up once again as people started coming towards the jungle gym.



I left the playground and strolled up towards the back of the school, along the wooden fence separating the pavement from the woods. It seemed to me like such a barrier, as if children would be ever so curious that exactly was beyond the fence’s broad shoulders. I soon entered the courtyard in which the school encircled. I saw the same humongous tree we had once seen strolling through here. A strong feeling of deja-vu sidled up to my thoughts, as I began to think the same thoughts the last time I was here, one year ago. I thought of the tree’s strong bark, its ageless days, in the same spot every single second. How anxious he must be to join children in their movement. How the years probably flew by for him, seeing generation after generation enter and exit the school, seeing them play, cradled them in his branches as they scaled him. It was depressing, almost.



I kept walking, until I reached the most remote corner of the school, with a few classroom doors and a handicapped ramp for wheelchairs. I remember her, moving closer as I embraced her close, her chest lifting in a long inhale of fresh excitement. Our conversation seemed to dwindle as if on hold. I pressed my forehead to hers, affectionately as our noses played each other. Her words trailed off, as if she threw them out the window, a whispering “Yes…” I pressed my trembling lips to hers, quaking with desire for her, yearning and receiving her response, as our first kiss grasped us both, connecting our stifled desire, freeing our senses. Our lips parted as our tongues rubbed each other’s slowly, my fingers entwined with her brown hair. Our eyes were closed, as if seeing the same vague darkness buried on the inside of our eyelids. I withdrew, dragging my fingers down her smooth cheek. It was like releasing our desire from certain suffocation at the last moment, and seemed to open up the blossomn, to release us from the tight grip of awkwardness. I remembered how I cradled her neck in my grasp, afraid to ever let her go, craving the euphoria once again, the same connection with her deep, oceanic heart.



Dusk was fogging out the setting sun, as the light gave one last yawn, and soon went to sleep. I walked away from the sacred spot, as if leaving the grave of an unforgettable someone. The past, those vivid memories, to me, were oh so more sentimental caliber to me than any sort of pale moment. It was much more precious than any cheap present I may dwell in. I thought of Courtney and I, countless memories, buried deep into the cemetary of my heart. I came to thinking that all those memories, were not rotting corpses long forgotten, but seeds planted, to flourish such a garden we became o be. It was one year since that first evening, come and gone, lived and loved. I saw then what we were, how much our love meant to me, how much a part of me it was. It was everything, it was a mountain with an endless peak, an ocean of a ceaseless voyage.I exited the courtyard and headed back to the front, making a complete circle around the building. The ghosts of my memories sank into me, shaking off their cobwebs, growing upon my stream of thought like vines on a chimney.



I was able to catch the last moments of the show, which was not worth my while. I waited with my parents outside the cafa-gym-atorium for my brother, and thought about the big picture, the entire portrait of the day. I wanted, ever so much, to call my beloved Kayla and tell her all I went through tonight, to the last dripping detail. I thought about my day at work, the stressing tasks I had to do to earn money, the poem I had written on the back of a receipt. I remembered the poem being quite good so I reached into my side pocket of my grungy old pants pocket, in order to read it to myself.



The poem was not there! The shock struck me as if electrocuted by a collecting storm of chaos. My mind was stuck on that poem! My blunt stupidity prevailed me again. I felt the heat of frustration boil in my pits, as my brother came out, ready to go with his trumpet all packed up. My parents didn’t even care to notice my sullen quandary. We walked back to the car, the same route we had taken up to this cursed place. I then realized what I had done. Earlier that evening, I remembered dropping a receipt out of my pocket, thinking nothing of it at the time. I knew that must have been my poem. It was absurd to think it would still be lying in the same spot I dropped it in, for that was well over an hour ago and it was a fairly windy evening.



I folded my arms solemnly and headed cross the over-stuffed parking lot for our van. I walked at a slower pace than the crowd that poured malevolently through the Tootin Hills doors like a faucet. I seemed to stand out, in a way, like a car on the freeway going 20 miles per hour slower than the rest of traffic. I felt as if I had abandoned a child of mine, conceived from the darkest bowels of my ticking heart. I felt a lump  collect and grow in my throat and I felt myself placed gently into a state of crying, a murky feeling of woe for my own idiocy.



I raised my head slowly when my mom called me blankly to “move my ass.” As I did, I saw something standing out in the middle of the lot. It seemed as much out-of-place as I did, and as I approached it, my mind was flipped like a quarter, so drastically, into a state of realization. I saw what it was, a crumpled piece of paper, the same one I had dropped stupidly upon my arrival. As I picked it up, I felt as if I found my lost child, who I had not seen in years. I unfolded it, and read the familiar lines back to myself.



“”””””””””The End”””””””