In the courtyard
Bare and unkempt
Is where you found me
Lost and without definition

Lighting my cigarette
Staring into my eyes
Taking this chance
I catch a glimpse
of your soul
through the bitter cold

Warming my hands
Individually
In the pockets
of my torn jacket
Fiercely unprepared
for what was to come...

The world passes by as I look across the courtyard, I stop to see the dry world passing by.
Kids riding their hoverboards, men and women making their way to their destinations,
all this with man-made machines shrieking the brakes to halt;
Funny are these DNA-embedded beings contending over who is richest, strongest and most influential.
This is where I am.

Wrapped up in your arms, fingers running everywhere;
The moist soft touches, blowing kisses in the air,
The warmth of your body that sets fire to even the cold October winds,
This is where I want to be.

The quilt that kept me warm has gone frosty,
The hair that ran like silk has gotten old,
The gentle squeeze on my hip stays forgotten.
Ripples of pleasure turned to pain, as I look back, that’s all I gained.
Looking at the dry world pass by; This is where I am, This is where I want you to be.

On the paint chipped pavement we went over the rules:
NO cherry bombs, NO bobbling,
NO lower-ballers, spin-tops,
chalk walkers, twenty fingers,
and especially NO  skyscrapers.
So for a few minutes we played as raw as apple skin knees,
it was the roughest, toughest, hard-nosed game
of four square any fourth grader has ever seen.
But it was all over when someone crossed the line.
There was fussing, cussing, and an accusation of the mustnt’s.
Eyebrows adjacent, we argued and clawed like kilkenny cats,
we were breaking rules, we crossed the chalk.
We took sides and worst of all,
the one crucial act that we regret,
we slammed the ball down.
It towered overhead like window washers
and landed on the school’s roof.
We stopped arguing. Nobody won that day.  

© Matthew Harlovic