And you didn’t hold the kittens
They held you
In the upstairs of your barn
Behind one of the hay bails

Where summer was endless
lake days
holding hands
Climbing trees
And exploring

All of it made us feel like we never needed anything else
But we didn’t know anything else
Where even in the winter
The wood stove was there to help us keep our sunshine
Warm
And
Excited
Who could run the fastest
Who had the most secrets
We were
Terrified
Of the neighbors dog
And how he tore at our heels
If we weren’t fast enough
We were terrified of our older brothers
And how much our bodies didn’t belong to us

Both our fathers were too loud
And our mothers too meek
We
Were each other’s only escape....


There were red ones
That grew just out of the deer’s reach
Behind the best climbing tree
Littered with pots and pans as high as the eye could see
But the special ones
The yellow ones
Required some adventuring
We braved the feared boundaries by your neighbors where that Rottweiler could reach us
Just for something a little sweeter than what we had
But it was never as scary as going home
We would rather risk the snarling demon
Than go home and hear the screaming
Than go home and go to sleep
Only to wake up
And try to convince ourselves What happened in the night

Was a dream.