| After a lifetime Away, Biking through the rain, not even three hours from my childhood memories, I turn to see my wake, in a puddle, spread across the path. The ripples are humongous. Like tsunamis running across the ocean. Did I see rain like this when I was a child? I let the bike keep going, and turn to look from 15 feet ahead. The ripples are already dying down. I wonder, why my unhappy memories can't die down like that, too. But then, I think; if my unhappiest memories were to drift away, would my happiest memories have to drift away too? I wonder whatever happened to the things that I remember. Like the squirrels that I chased when I was a child. They must have died away, long ago, only to have been replaced by new squirrels. - My old piles of leaves must have been blown away by now- by the wind. And the bullies that I stood up to must be long gone, raising families of their own. I remember the fights that I didn't win. and I remember my shorts pulled down, in front of everyone. I also remember the fights that I did win. And a blue ribbon from an art contest, in 1st grade. I'd drew a killer whale. Did any of it really matter? Who knows. It doesn't seem to have changed anything now. Though I still remember it. I remember lying in the grass, and watching the clouds- with you. The way your hair drifted slightly when the wind blew, and the way your cheeks went up- when you smiled. And I remember when you smiled bashfully, as I held my hands upon your waist, and pulled you close, - only to kiss your hair... ... and the feeling of your palm, upon my chest, and of your cheek, against my heart. But I turn to smile at you, and there aren't even the ripples anymore, upon the puddle. No, don't go. Don't leave me. Don't take my ripples away. |