Outside the school the
monkey bars are the color of pee. A sick jaundice smear of slick-sallow. A lump
of butter barreled out on scoops, half melted in the late summer heat. A transparent vertical boxing glove proudly
arched towering above mulched chips and damp soil. It was to this esteemed geometrical monument
of horizontal and vertical bars intersecting and connecting that we carelessly
flung ourselves up to the top of. Our dreams and our lives lay above, in the
clouds. A tower
of Babel consisting of
youthful blather and botched dreams filtered out in spurious endeavors. Of lives that were not real and not our own
but yet somehow were valid and belonged only to us. On the blacktop boys
dribble balls and grunt, swearing inwardly, cautious of not to dirty their attire.
Eric Bushman keeps a towel tucked inside the elastic fiber of his shorts so not
to smear his Nikes. David’s Nike’s were purchased at Payless and our called
PUMA. He has a pair of Jordache’s at home. Patrick’s sneakers flap and smile.
Hale is wearing sturdy Tractor boots.
The bars resemble more of a rocket. A vessel for our dreams to blast off
of and never come back down. The metal bars our bottoms saddled became
bookmarks. Our fledging bodies were dog ears- transitional chapters. Not boys
not men. Our testicles freely dangling between our legs like grapes. The winds billowing into our coffee mug
shaped twelve-year-old ear lobes. A commix book rolled up like a telescope in
our back pocket. Hale, licking a chocolate milk moustache lingering slightly
above his lip. Patrick adjusts a cowlick when Hollis Lionziski smiles at him.
Jeremiah Noel jogs past, screaming and contorting his lanky limbs like a
corporeal Gumby throwing a wiffle ball at a fourth grader and yelling out the
word Nah-uh.
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