Swingset Matchbox

I recoil at the thought of life being bound by a glass of transparent fragility—easy to twist and crush in between your fingers, easy to see the beams dwindle in brilliance. It's like this nightmare you try to struggle out of when sunlight is calling, but you can't, because apparently your head is a kamikaze pilot.

And it's bringing you down with it.

You see patches of undulating green, but the surface is hard and solid. You thought that you'd die again, one more time, and maybe you did. But here comes the bloody aftermath where everything is cool and hot and you're concisely underneath the iron. Every step is futile because you can't seem to catch the feeling with comfort and relief that maybe the worst has passed. Yet you still try and you sit silently, with only the creaks of a rusty swingset and your own sobs wrecking the whole ghost parade. Your hair is tangled in a frizz and the place is empty. You know you look horrible, but it's okay. Nobody's watching just now.

"What do I do?" you think as the air is buzzing with the dark. Only Christmas lights from afar and the unseen moon are generously giving the place light. You feel pent-up. You feel like you were dropped off here, prepared to get in touch with elementary friends in a kindergarten powwow, but your arms are vacant without anyone to greet with a hug.

Then there is the swing, cold and dusty with memories tonight, and you feel something oncoming. Oh there just go your eyelids, trying to hide back the tears. Your emotions can be taxing so this is healing, but still. There is a comely wind you smile at with lethargy. There is that breath of fire you begin to release but can't. You search, lost, for the moon, but the trees are concealing it. You think, you think, you feel a friend embracing your hands, embellishing your heart with stories you yourself can't make up. You feel a stressed dichotomy between you two that hacks the atmosphere with more tears of your own, but it's a fine difference, because for once you don't feel that alone.

And there's a moment with no dialogue, just a curt incision in the wind, a shift from swinging back and forth. There's an ignition here somewhere, a crossword puzzle prepared in the storage room of your heart, and you think you exhale the smallest of blue flames. There is a pause in the storytelling. And you can attest to the fact that you really are never alone.