I didn’t anticipate
that someone would come along
and put together a neighborhood
of every backyard I’ve ever memorized.

It’s a lot of childhood stuff. Houses I grew up in,
other yards that rose and fell
with no respect to physics or logic
and football fields
about the size of Los Angeles in a blizzard.

I know I just got here,
but I have a feeling I’m somehow older
than when I started. There’s no way of knowing for sure.
The windows refuse to acknowledge my conversation,
and the rain disappears before it can touch a thing.

Something also tells me
that there hasn’t been another person around
here since I was a kid and every last one of them
vanished as soon as I left.

Most could take it or leave it,
and others looked for me in places
I wasn’t slated to appear at for another fifteen years.

Leaves are everywhere,
and at least some of them have been raked
into piles taller than I am. Between that
and the wind being reasonably fierce I would think
that someone was here just a little while ago.

But I’m not sure.

There’s something
in this long-standing dream
telling me that I’m going to have
to work this out on my own.

I can’t leave until I find something
worth talking about. I can’t speak
until I see something guaranteed to pause
my heart long enough to know
but not long enough to wake up.

This is one of the more frustrating puzzles.

All the houses are locked,
of course,
and every last rock is glued to something
that has it hooks in whatever lives best
five thousand miles below the ground.

I wish there was someone to talk to.
Someone can fill in random bits of trivia.

One of my problems
is that I sometimes miss the smallest details
that stand to make me happier than I’ve ever been.

The devil,
or anyone who can wear a red suit
and keep quiet in a jam-packed bar
until last call is over and the losers are hungry
is probably laughing all the way to the bank.

Someone’s laughing.
It sure as hell isn’t me.

11/09/2009

Posted on 11/09/2009
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