Stop this.

I’m still a child.

I’m still five, and the memory of splashing in the despairing rain with my green raincoat and Dad is not a lifelong treasured memory; it was just Dad trying to occupy my yesterday when the rain wouldn’t let up.

I’m still seven, and we had to put Oscar down last night. He was my first best friend with a thousand untold secrets and a million shedding hairs. I don’t understand what being put to sleep means.

I’m still nine, and my best friend and I decide to start a dog walking business. We constantly complain because we are too young to get any serious customers who didn’t patronize us. We can’t wait until we’re older.

I’m still eleven, and my brother and I are learning to surf. We have a constant rivalry, despite us both being as unbalanced as two upright sloths on a hamster wheel.

I’m still twelve, and we talk about what we’ll do when we finish school. We decide that we’ll go to Borneo together, and then come back home and study to become vets, my best friend and me. We can’t wait to finish school.

I’m still thirteen, and my first crush told my best friend he likes her. He asks me for help in asking her out. I help; she doesn’t know I like him. She says yes.

I’m still fourteen, and I’ve left my best friend and moved away. A new school, new city, new life, and it terrifies me.

I’m still fifteen, and this time it’s my turn. My first date, first kiss, first boyfriend. It’s a new world for me.

I’m still fifteen, and it’s my first heartbreak. He left; my second dog was put down; Pa was diagnosed with Leukemia. Three heartbreaks rolled into one.

But I’m sixteen now. I’m not a child. I can drive and have ***, I can travel without permission, I’m trusted to deal with peer pressure and drugs and alcohol. This isn’t child’s play anymore.

I’m not sixteen. I’m still a child.

Where did it all go? Why did I want to grow up?


I don’t want to grow up.

> a.t.

There were dividing lines
between Springfield
and Mariners Gate
soft, subtle lines
that spoke of origin
and code
and biting union

it was all
the reason
for being;
alive and living
dead or dying
deep in a pack
of pint size resistors
hell bent on the
marsh crow
and cannabis tower
jumping the rush
with *** shots
and anchors
and tribunals

camouflage creepers
and transient floaters
marked rebellion at the gates
(skullduggery and taunt
high on their favor list)
jack straws and flat paddles
for the evening charade
beakers and flailing hands
from the foot washing baptist
(the Pleasant Street conservatives with their
own something to say…“there’s gonna be hell to pay!”)

there's a
lingering effect
to this sentiment
(evident in the pump house stride)
the river winds
blow gently
into the night
as the huddling packers
and **** backs
chase the evening hours

it’s a bitter sweet
end of an era;
those traction bars
hood scoops
and nickel bags
will always
be the rage

In time you’ll recover and absolve
push those scorned impressions aside
hammer down the jaded edges
and sing
that delightful commoners song
the one you sang so well
in what seems a lifetime ago

You really had it you know
that fiery disposition and nimble cunning
those butter chords and derelict style
we could see it -- we could all see it
it was all it took to turn the evening tide
(and rile that buck fever)
heads bashing
tongues lambasting
middle fingers high
and raising Cain on those may fly statesmen

There were no rules
when it came to your survival
no textbook rally or common bond
no structured songbird or bravado stage
you either made it, or laid it
“life by the *****” Mr. Poppy would say
a kaleidoscope of dreams
with rich colored imagery
hardened artisan seams
in a carefully woven motif

But something got lost in the needle point
something sinister and distorted took hold
the quirks and street genius
that were your lifeline
gave way to grunts
and squeals
and chilling night crawlers
the colors faded quickly
to a cold confining grey

There was no grace in the new world
no retribution or switch back
no salvation or accorded finale
only edged platforms of blackened steel
that kept you cased
in a silent vanquished cell
shivering cold with fear
night without day
all in the shadow of death

But time heals all
and the polish sneakers
and open sores are long gone
(though the roman nose and shallow cleft remain)
indeed the falconer beat the widow maker
this go around
and I’m hopeful it won’t happen again
and if it does you’ll see me
standing hand on heart
with that old verse in hand:

he ain’t tainted
or silly,
and most certainly
not forgotten…
he ain’t loony
or fixed,
or a product of his self-doing…
he’s just a straight shootin’ guy,
who had the most of it
figured out

Seventeen years old and troubled, I took walks in the woods to sort out my mind.  There were miles of it behind the old neighborhood.
I could meditate on thoughts and walk down paths, off paths, for miles if I wished.  My forest grew in semi-rural suburbia of my hometown, just a thirty minute drive east from Atlanta.
I'd like to believe that it grows there still...  

   One could walk a mile or two through untamed, mostly coniferous, forest but suddenly step out onto a clearing of uninterrupted rock, desolate and pocked like the surface of the moon.  A moonscape bounded by trees.  An anomalous break in the journey of green.  A massive plane of granite lies, apparently, beneath much of our state.  The woods in my area had this unique feature...  Patches where the granite was exposed to the surface.  Some were the size of a small city park.  Others were the size of multiple football fields.  Those accessible by bicycle were especially fun.  They would be explored thoroughly as I jostled and bounced my mountain-bike over the irregular surfaces.  Others lay deep in the woods.  I would walk as much as I could or just lie on the solidness of that ground and look at clouds.

   As pressures in my heart and mind increased, I would come to these woods angry and frustrated.  Pent-up emotions had few outlets.  Poetry was there, a kind of constant companion of the day,  but sometimes I just needed to run.
   Something felt primal and therapeutic about it.  One day, in a lot of frustration and anger, I made up this stupid game.   It was simple.
1: Run.  Immediately.  North.
2: Don't stop. Don't stop.  Don't stop.  Unless stopped involuntarily.

   I leapt off the trail and ran.  Though I felt despairing, the freedom was undeniably liberating.  Constantly, there were split-second decisions to make...  Over or under?  Left or right? More often than not, it just had to be "through" and, in my determination and stupid teen nihilism, I plowed through lots of tangles and thorns, scratching up my ankles in the process.  I didn't care and, stupidly, welcomed the blood until a stronger patch of thorns held fast to my ankle. My running speed slammed me to the ground.  I think I laughed, then, like a ******* crazy person.  I saw myself and felt foolish.  I laughed at the sad sight of this broody kid, breathless and bleeding on the forest floor, who had an otherwise unremarkable and privileged life.  My troubles aren't even worth recalling. They were that trivial, even in the moment.  I picked myself up.  It felt as if I were, happily, helping a friend.  I was feeling good as I helped him walk, carefully, back south again.