--

This night.

The fog fades,
in the lingering remnant
of the gods wasted breaths.

Undressing the world
of it's neon hued impurities
and star bled fallacies.

For only a brief moment,
as it may on nights as these.

Where despite the lead
in our hearts and lungs,
we may feel and breathe
as deep as we've ever dreamed.

To bask in the warmth of light,
without fear of penance
of a bee sting, or sunburnt face.

--

It hasn't always been this way.

I remember my place,
when I was a child.

We all do, I hope.

The place we would hide
in the wide open, plain sight.

Perhaps,
an old culvert ditch,
lined with wide reed cattails.

Long, I played in their small clearings
in the twilit after supper hours,
looming above the rocky creek.

Waiting for the tiny heads of frogs,
to emerge from the settling waters
and lunge for their displaced shadows.

Wriggling, slimy through my fingers,
back into the deep muddied pools.

Looking back,
Failure was always present,
just never prominent.

But nothing mattered back then.
the frogs are bigger things now.

Cars, women, jobs....

Anyways...

--

Often.

I see old friends
here or there.

Though time and pride
have driven us apart
even for a few words.

Nevertheless.

We all shared this place,
and made each other names.

All in good fun and all in good taste.

We'd stare into the culvert
down the long narrow tunnel
to the tiny pinhole otherside.

Daring each other to go inside
that smelly passage that ran
under the end of my best friends street.

I never liked my name,
yellow belly butter fingers.

Needless to say I took the dare
got down on my grass stained knees
and went head first in the worst place,
I'd been upto the early point in my life.

Crawling fast and hastily
through that wretched hole,
cursing every name I knew,
and I could hear the laughter
bellowing from behind
at the pinhole light at my back.

Triumph was sweet,
as it always is.

From that point,
I was Matt,
though I always was.

Since then I've quadrupled in age
and earned many other names,
not all in good fun or taste.

Not one I've ever been more proud of
than the one my father gave me.

--

I've driven past that place
more than a dozen times,
in the past dozen moons.

The creek and hole are overgrown
with tall thorned weeds and brush,
and a chain link fence surround them
like a prison recreation area
devoid of innocence and wonder.

I can't help but shed a tear,
when I pass that place by.

The memories of lessons I'd learned before I even knew,
I had learned them are lodged in the back of my busy head.

Like that lump in the back of your throat
when your first love spoils like left open wine.

It never goes away, and I feel it on these nights.

Crawling up my throat as I stain this page
with the pain of things lost and black ink.

As a grown man, it's hard to admit.

You never sleep quite as sound,
as after a good long cry...

But for now,
I think I'll go for a drive.

--