Once when I was young,* I was told you could swing so high you'd be able to just *fly away.  

   I learned early on
               That not everything we're told is true
               The fantastical can sometimes amount to a pile of plastic bags scattered in the wind
                    The end isn't always happy and there's not always closure
      Punctuations are more often question marks than definitive periods
                And looking for a definite explanation took prevalence over allowing our imaginations to fill in the blanks.
         Play time was replaced with study time,
             And before we knew it, it was time for work
                      We strayed from the playgrounds of our youth,
      Never returning to the top of the slide, we'd hit the ground a bit too hard to keep the enchantment of seemingly endless possibilities going
                                              Carriages became pumpkins long before midnight,
              And the school bell rang before we could finish our fun
                       But to tell the truth, sometimes,
     When everyone else has gone inside, back to the real world, full of logic and banalities,
         I sit on the old swingset kicking my feet
    Hoping it will let me *soar

It was the time of summer where every kid had silently realized that it was ending,
No longer halfway through, no longer half full
Leaking and spilling out,
like the gas in my twenty two year old car
We couldn’t stop it,
And the moments of high school summertime
The moments that supposedly turn into stories we tell forever
Hadn’t seemed to have happened.

Both of us on the swing lazily swung
Dizzily from side to side.
Climbing forward, falling in reverse
Our combined bodyweight shifting back and forth
Tanned legs kicking up in an attempt at unison on every backwards glide.
Gravity hung us there,
Pulling the swing toward the ground no matter the rotation.

I sat on top.
I wore bleached shorts and bleached hair.
I worried that gravity or more so my value to it
would crush him.


At the same time, I felt unbelievably small.


The air pressed in on me from all angles,
it touched my bare legs
it easily waffled my shirt.

“Mel, if you were squishing me, I would let you know”,
he assured with a cocky tone of his very own that somehow made me feel special.
I couldn’t help but think he was only trying to be tough
Attempting to let sheer willpower overweigh my well earned quads,
My six foot frame.
The awkward body I never quite grew into
Never knew how to masterfully control
Never knew how to fill.
Though I secretly (wanted to) truly believe him

On this humid night I felt like the ball was in my court,
Like I could do anything and everything.
That nothing could go wrong
That the boy that I was sitting on was genuine
And that I could simply drive off to wherever.

(I had a full tank of gas and enough money to get me to Alabama).

I felt small in this,
in this infinity of possibility all around me.
Like a weight was pushing into me
Putting on pressure that couldn’t be ignored
That shrunk me just enough.
I felt powerless to fate
Powerless to this planet
To this grand, glorified hunk of earth which was so much greater than me
(and surely my insignificant weight anxieties).

I felt like the gas was leaking out faster than I could use it.
I felt like my infinity was disappearing as I swung within it.


Just like that, I let the ball drop and the gas leak out.
We just kept swinging.
Laughing,
Wasting,
Talking,

Dying.

A swingset sits in the yard, starkly vacant, silent.
A chair is stationed only feet away—the watchpost of an anxious pepere.
Only days ago I sat there, watching the child of my old age
Swinging, hanging upside down, proving to me and herself that nothing could scare her.
“Watch me,” she commands, daring the gods to do their worst.
All she needs from me is the occasional tribute to her skill.
All I need from her is to bless me with her being.

She is gone now, and there is no help for it.
An empty swing, a useless chair, and the ache of loss.
The swing haunts me with her voice and I listen to it in my mind.
Dante got it wrong.
It isn’t the dead who abandon hope—
Hell is for the living.

someone find a ruler and rap this silly fool on the knuckles
she ran through the playground, ran too fast
too quick and too hopeful
there was already someone on the swingset
she thought it was empty (she'd been led to believe so)
now all there is left to do is to sit and watch
up, down, soaring to the sky
no flying for her, someone else got there first.

I told you to run while you could,
get out before it's too late.
because I was the friendliest to strangers
and the strangest to friends.
My heart had never been open to dividends.
But your strangeness was similar to my strangeness: pushing out of fear - or had I made you that way?
You despised Mr. Hyde more than I did, but you loved Dr. Jekyl fervently with more compassion than I could ever give him...

I told you how it sometimes felt like I was living another's life... and looking at it now it's like I was sitting on a perpetual swing: x distance forward and x distance back.

We lucked out for so long because I would pull when you would push, and when I pushed you would pull me back. And for a while we both pulled. And then forever onward we pushed. Or forever wayward. Sometimes pulling in doesn't keep people from going away. And when you push someone, you can't expect them to pull you back. Because not everyone is sitting on the same swingset.

I was sitting on our swings.
Rocking.
Waiting.
Listening.
Hoping.

That you were lying.

-trj

You're a flower-child,
spread on the bed with
flowers stuck to your little
head,

with Ginsberg & Whitman on
the shelf & feminine mystique
dripping from the
ceiling.

Moon-lady,
Venus,
tides rising & crushing
the shore,

while I snuggle
my flannel for warmth,
trying
not to be a bore.

Framed pictures as you
reminisce on when we
were younger &
untamed.

"We can still be untamed,
we've been framed
for uninsanity!"

But you call me a fool
& put your
porcelain head in my neck
& I feel foolish.

In the damp light of a cloudy day,
muscles aching, waves
crashing,
uncontrollable urges.

Stranded in the pregnant
belly of a ***** secret city
drawing
the red rose of secret union

& we are sheltered
in the ****** warmth of the
blankets,
cocooned like little monsters.

The calming ocean
& the calming whispers
& the tiny kisses
surround me, blot out my thoughts.

You sing me to
sleep &  run little
fingers
through my knotted hair.

Your tiny dollar store
Buddhas belch incense
over
the backdrop of your perfume.

The wind chimes
twinkle & whimper on the
porch where the swingset
rocks in the rain.

"I wish you weren't
engaged but I don't mind
breaking a few taboos."

You laugh like a soft mad fairy
& look down
at your phone & I turn over
on my naked side.

You laugh a funeral
giggle & I know I should have
worshipped you sooner
at the pillow-altar.

Show me Heaven without
death &
the Garden of Earthly Delights
devoid of sin,

show me your sharpened fox
grin &
the way sunset ripples
at your breath,

I will show you sacrifice
& the hidden light
of our lives
in the damp of the night.

I was danglin' my feet off the edge of that pretty throne
called Childhood..
swinging up and down and all aroun'
twistin, sometimes just dangling my feet, twin tin'...

and all the while, My pappies were standing by the picnic table,
talking about how sad it was
that they ******* a man.. ruined his life in fact..
and well, after all , thats just how it's gotta Be
it was accident and all... sort of

and I heard 'em telling a lie in fact!!  a Whole Lie about this guy!!
an wasn't even nothin' that took place.. Nothin!!
and not one of 'um.. with enough integrity to say anything

so I sat there swinging.. thinking 'bout it all...
then,
I heard a man come up and say "problem solved ...he done killed himself..."

and it was then, that I saw the LIFE leave their bodies
everyone of them..
except ONE.....

lifted up like smoke
just left em...
knowing what they'd done
lied, hated.. ruined a person, took away his Name...his  hope..

left 'em, with all the children unfinished..
not one son grown up yet

So I asked that One... what are gonna do?

and I Saw him Look... and SEE
the legacy of his Life
standing out like a Vision of the Grand Canyon
Pristine like....

and then suddenly, there was rivers  inky Blackness flown' like crazy...
running thru the hollows
running,
like a River of unstoppable Magnitude
cutting through Rock like it was Nothin'

creating a whole new World of UNDERSTANDING.....

and he turned to me and said...
I'm gonna make it Right
For your Pappy...

and He did.
He saved my Life.
He fixed my breathing...