::Far Removed
11:50 a.m. - 2005-02-18
She complained I never played with her anymore,
always buried in my pages of lands far away from here,
and as her conviction plucked a chord, I knew better
than to attempt rhetoric in a flimsy effort to contradict her.
“It’s different now that he’s gone,” I feebly held up
in explanation of my hermit-imitating ways.
Unmoved, she held stick arms on undeveloped hips,
“But he’s not really gone. Your dad didn’t die,” she reminded me.
“No, he didn’t,” I replied, then the words on my lips did,
as her statement reminded me that life events were occurring
and leaving paths of destruction even I couldn’t comprehend.
After all, I was living it day-by-day and even I didn’t understand
the hollow feeling that followed me now, as the blood constantly
rushed out of my chest, filling my cheeks with a red stigma
of maturity beyond that of my peers: attracting fascination
from my classmates even as it steered me away from them
and into isolation—only assuaged when I fell out of their world,
headlong into books that promised I wouldn’t be alone.
When she realized I had nothing else to say, she left,
headed back towards the playground where they all hung
from monkey bars and slides—only briefly remaining
upside down and sideways before hurtling themselves
towards the next adventure, hungry for as many as possible
before class resumed. “I’m leaving because of you,”
pounded in my head as she walked away, and I returned
to my book, shaken by the presence of his voice in my head—
the words, the accusatory tone, the heaviness all recreated
so perfectly that I could swear he’d returned
only to tell me he was back and leaving all over again.
