remember when we were in third grade
and we would make it our goal to trample
every single patch of fresh snow that hadn’t been touched yet?
i don’t even know why we were so determined to touch
the previously untouched,
but it made us feel so happy, so proud, so accomplished.
Perhaps it was our first taste of true ownership,
perhaps it gave us a feeling similar to that of Christopher Columbus when he declared
that the world was not, in fact, flat.
Perhaps it was an embryonic stage of rebellion,
a metaphor for a loss of innocence,
trampling and touching and ruining what was once
a pretty, unadulterated patch of snow,
as if to make a statement against anyone and anything
that had ever made us feel
weak and stupid and insignificant, and
powerless.
We were the only two kids at recess who thought of it, who found such
simple pleasure in doing it, who bonded over it, and now,
we don’t even talk anymore.
Perhaps it was a metaphor
for the deterioration of a friendship, too.