090608

My brother is getting married
And im not ready.
Relatives I didn’t even know existed arrive to bustle and make busy around the house. But somehow always find time to catch me in a corner, and ask me what im doing with my life. Flowers, and tulle, and paper lanterns settle over everything like a white powdered veil of misguided dreams. Not that that’s cynical or anything.

My brother is getting married, and I am leaving the anthill with the dog tugging on my arm and music battering my ear drums. Skipping through back trails and brush, behind closed eye windows of white washed suburbia I scramble. Stopping to light and relight my joint when the wooding becomes thick enough. My dog wanders over and sniffs around my ankles. I keep moving upwind to outwalk green-stained air.

My brother is getting married and I’m walking around the field, lost in transient-type thoughts. I take my dog off the leash and he runs through the dandelions, sending wishes flying like my whims on the wind. I wander to the swings. Chase follows, looking stardust frosted with dandy-seed-aeronauts stuck in his fur.

My brother is getting married and I am standing, one foot rocking this black tar rubber cradle when I see you on the far end of the field. Leaping off the swing Chase and I run across the dirt. Twin red comet tails streaming behind us.
I cant recognize you, but I know my hair’s distinctive shine will give me away to anyone from the area. And who else would come here? I circle the outer edge of the field, feeling like a bird of prey, and picking my way down to the lower playground, watching your back as I get closer. Watching your shaggy locks sway as you and the soccer ball bounce off each other,
-and for a second I think its you.

My brother is getting married and as much as I know I am over you, nothing has prepared me for the way my heart stopped at the thought of seeing you in this place.
And I had spent the last two years making it mine again.
730 dizzying turns in orbit to dry erase the memories of you and me in this place, until the way he moved- like you used to- brought them back in a flood.
And even when I see his little boy face, I still duck behind pine tree skirts and walk the chain-link path between blackberry brambles and spiky fern bushes instead.

My brother is getting married. And I follow the dirt path wherever it leads me. Leading me I think to the bent tree fork I used to perch in, centuries ago it seems now, Cheshire grin matched only by the stars above me. But city zoning has cut a jagged path through this neck of the woods. Tree gone, neon red tags tell me which other memories are marked for uprooting.
My dog catches scent of something intriguing and tugs at his leash. I let his persistence lead me home.