I came from two very different,
conflicting,
worlds
after my parents got divorced
my father moved to the city
and my mother stayed in the rural neighborhood

at my mothers,
my sister and I had our own rooms
closets full of clothes
neighbors who had two parents with steady jobs
expensive cars
the latest technology
and all the fancy toys a child could ever ask for

at my fathers,
my sister and I shared a room with one bed
we couldn't afford air conditioning,
so on the hot summer nights we slept on the hardwood floor
our neighbors lived with aunts and uncles and cousins
and when we played outside we had to wear shoes,
so as to not step on needles and broken beer bottles

but to us kids,
playing was still playing
friends were still friends
our childish innocence was what saved us
and what blurred the lines between our two worlds.

I remember
years ago when I was young
sleeping on the cool hard wood
of our small house in the city
now, my sister and I had beds
but we did not have air conditioning
and in the suffocating heat of the summer nights
the cool hardwood was our friend.

I remember
waking up my father in the middle of the night
outside my window I could hear pops and bangs
"shh," he soothed me
"it's only fireworks"
as I got older
I realized they were not,
and things were not always as they seemed.