"memories in paraphrase"
I think it was last year that I went by your house again. It was a strange day, overcast and grey, but hot and sticky, which isnt that strange for weather in Houston. But then again, it could have been my heart that felt strange. The latter is more likely.
I drove to your neighborhood, almost six years later to the month when I last drove by. I remember how the tires almost stuck to the pavement in front of the place you once called home. As if they didn't want to budge forward, despite the slow, insistent pressure on the gas pedal. I looked up into the second story, where the windows were draped in white, like a burial shroud. I nearly tricked myself into thinking that I would see your face pop out from between the slit in the two white panels, and that you would grin, in that lovely boyish way that melted my heart. That you would push your glasses back towards the bridge of your nose as you looked down at me in my car. And that you would disappear from the frothy white in the window, only to throw the door open, run out to my car with a Jolt Cola in hand, and a smile on your lips, that was painted on only for my pleasure.
I saw the you of the past haunting that empty coffin of a home in the present.
The tires did roll forward, reluctantly, around the bend from the home facing the cul-de-sac. I stopped in front of a park. Not A park. The park. The park where we dealt with life in words and angry gestures aimed at the ducks and geese in the pond. Where we would giggle and laugh like children in the sun, when you pushed me on the swings. Where we inhaled our drugs of choice: apathy, fantasy, love, angst. We inhaled the intoxicating breath of love, and choked on the scent of angst and anger. Everything was new and beautiful in a strangely grotesque way. Our world was alive, even in our willingness to die and leave this world.
It was eerily silent. Like a ghost who has lost his reason to haunt. There is only a lonely, cold feeling left as the ghost lifts and separates from his haunting grounds. The ghost of you lifted from this patch of heaven that we ran to for comfort, and you left behind only a feeling that you had lost your reason to return.
The swing welcomed me, and curved around my bottom, the chains felt cold and stinging in my hands. It was July, hot and sweltering, the seat growing soft around my botton, the pliable rubber warmed and moulding to the seat of a person. But the chains were cold. Pulling my palms away slightly, I could see the rust powdering my fingertips and palms. No breeze. The swing was motionless. No you to push me, and I could not muster the courage in my bones to disturb the fabric of this world that went untouched for six years.
I walk back to the car. There is nothing left. No emotion, no ties.
No you. Your essence is long departed from this place. I dont look back as I drive out of the neighborhood.
I drove to your neighborhood, almost six years later to the month when I last drove by. I remember how the tires almost stuck to the pavement in front of the place you once called home. As if they didn't want to budge forward, despite the slow, insistent pressure on the gas pedal. I looked up into the second story, where the windows were draped in white, like a burial shroud. I nearly tricked myself into thinking that I would see your face pop out from between the slit in the two white panels, and that you would grin, in that lovely boyish way that melted my heart. That you would push your glasses back towards the bridge of your nose as you looked down at me in my car. And that you would disappear from the frothy white in the window, only to throw the door open, run out to my car with a Jolt Cola in hand, and a smile on your lips, that was painted on only for my pleasure.
I saw the you of the past haunting that empty coffin of a home in the present.
The tires did roll forward, reluctantly, around the bend from the home facing the cul-de-sac. I stopped in front of a park. Not A park. The park. The park where we dealt with life in words and angry gestures aimed at the ducks and geese in the pond. Where we would giggle and laugh like children in the sun, when you pushed me on the swings. Where we inhaled our drugs of choice: apathy, fantasy, love, angst. We inhaled the intoxicating breath of love, and choked on the scent of angst and anger. Everything was new and beautiful in a strangely grotesque way. Our world was alive, even in our willingness to die and leave this world.
It was eerily silent. Like a ghost who has lost his reason to haunt. There is only a lonely, cold feeling left as the ghost lifts and separates from his haunting grounds. The ghost of you lifted from this patch of heaven that we ran to for comfort, and you left behind only a feeling that you had lost your reason to return.
The swing welcomed me, and curved around my bottom, the chains felt cold and stinging in my hands. It was July, hot and sweltering, the seat growing soft around my botton, the pliable rubber warmed and moulding to the seat of a person. But the chains were cold. Pulling my palms away slightly, I could see the rust powdering my fingertips and palms. No breeze. The swing was motionless. No you to push me, and I could not muster the courage in my bones to disturb the fabric of this world that went untouched for six years.
I walk back to the car. There is nothing left. No emotion, no ties.
No you. Your essence is long departed from this place. I dont look back as I drive out of the neighborhood.