Playgrounds

It’s been a while.
Hasn’t it, since we last sat slumped
In rubber swings with rusted chains.
Not knowing what it meant
Just to be comforted by the company.
Those nights came and went
Like wildfire spreading through my lungs.
Choking me for hours, and I could only sit there blankly.
Suffocating.
Until the heat would turn.
And then our cheeks would graze.
My freckles fresh, your skin pealing off in thick layers.
Our summer metamorphosis.
We were just two kids without a plan.
I knew you then, I thought so.
Not the mask you wore,
But the face you’d tried long to cover up.
The summer brought you back to simpler means.
Brought you back to me.
You said you'd be a kid forever,
But I was never fooled.
Plucking clovers out of the summer sky.
Wishing on the stars that things would stay.
You were always
Stealing bits and pieces of my heart,
But never giving them back.
I was young, always too willing to lose myself.
In love with love.
Bewitched by the idea.
Sitting still has come a painful reminder.
I can’t remember when we last swung
From one topic to the next,
Care-free and to the point.
Honest.
Now everything’s a strategy to get from A to B.
And you’re never saying anything.
Never listening.
You only want to move your lips
And stare at the parts I try to cover up.
You see me for what you want to see.
For innocence.
And the only thing you ever did right.
But now there’s wrinkles where our smiles should be.
And conviction in the creases.
Your every word rehearsed,
Dripping with charming wit.
Your mask a fiery red.
It all ends.
I no longer know you any more than a favored song.
Something to rapture you for a minute or two,
And then leave you staring blankly
Wondering why there's such a sharp pain
Shooting down your chest
And into clench fists waiting for their chance
To be set free.
How silly to wait around on something
That hurts like perfect smiles,
Just before it stings like acid tears.
Maybe I'm never going back.
It's hard to tell which way the wind will blow,
because there's nothing there to gage it on.