It’s the way the sun bounces off the gravel and the smell of wet moss mixed With the edge of old cigarettes and tree sap, It’s the gap between memories and fuzzy impressions Of past existences mixed with recaptured instances And empirical proof that my childhood existed. In the way light moves heaver through the air there Until branches from the walnut lift and you can hear scrub jays, And the echo of cans that rattled In perfect belonging with the march of smacking sandal shoes Chasing along black pavement toward dirt roads And children’s kindred spirits running after water. The heavy sent of fresh fallen rain on old pain and yellow Paint and trumpet flowers that play silent music To the ears of a young person discovering existence Exploring persistence and resilience and Coming forth out of darkened nights with the Resurrected brilliance of the maimed sick and twisted Soldiers of life from these former generations. Never has a place existed as hell and heaven Like this museum of familial dysfunction. I stand here at junction between, panic struck sadness, And the will for the gumption to say goodbye To a past with dwindling survivors And sour memories. Praying a thank you to dark space For the fond thought of their wrinkled faces And a grandeur lesson of all that I want not, And for the first thing my life to stay in one place For the duration of its chaos. Sweet wicked, loving woman , The remnants of my childhood will die with you. I assume I will hide my tears in your memory. My past my memories myself, I hate the parts I love And fear a kind of numbness at the loss of you At the loss of this chunk of myself And of all the things that will slip my grasp When so much of my life is confined To the constantly desecrating atmosphere of my mind. And when I turn to find The first cornerstone of my existence, My support and experience I will See only shadows and the pasts of real things, And I will miss you.