somuchrain

When we were children we sat on top of piles of dirt in our Sunday
clothes and mouthed tiny strategies under our parents watchful eyes. On schoolyards we were an army of grass throwers to surround bullies. Junkyards were our armories and the dirt pit held our secrets.

When we were children we scribbled little plans on pieces of scrap paper. We built giant talking machines out of old newspapers and empty soda bottles to send to town to steal us candy. We planned to run away for months and built a fortress in the woods in case the cowboys came.

The sun went down and we hid the pirate maps we'd drawn in invisible ink to crawl into beds, warm with the folding of mothers.

Today we hatch tactics that fall like dead mice from our mouths.Tired and scared, we scratch diagrams in the dust covering the floor, and brush them over before anybody can see. We lost our maps. The cowboys have come. Folding paper cranes we listen to the humming of street lights and recite to ourselves the songs we wrote when we were, once, children.

We were an army once, when we were children. We marched on ruined cities. We, with tomato soup tin drums and laughter. With vast thoughtlessness they built us in prison and we held to one another. We locked away all our love in a golden-green box to hide in the smallest places inside us, grown over with thorns.

We still whisper when we sleep, and that will be what gives us away, in the end. We whisper to ourselves in the secret joy that suddenly, overnight, with a rainstorm, everything will change.