seesaw not seen

cold stones stacked tall. dark. empty.  we grew up, they moved away.  now i pass by everyday and sigh.  fleeting in and out of lives, now only i remain.  summer nights spent in mustard yellow and blue; on couches in the dark willing time to stop.  first loves lost.

the ball court where no ball could be played for the cracks in the heat and the puddles in the cold.  we talked for hours until we were caught by parents, who had been looking for us for those same hours while we should have been at home.  a simpler time, before phones on the hip of every seven-year-old, though much harder for a mother searching for a child.  but our parents should have learnt to come first to the place where Tora once stood.  sitting on a tree stump big enough to fit five. 

now the seesaw has not been seen in years, the playground fort but lost.

but the stones don’t hold our memories.  this time before rent and responsibilities lives on in the spark in our eyes when we meet again, and talk about the way the floors creaked as you tried to sneak and how we thought we knew it all.