The breeze that sweeps the ocean's waves.
1.
His voice is like a boomerang, thrown too hard and stuck in the poor girl's memory, pictures and sounds buying it as if they accepted the disturbance. He stands tall and overshadows the playing field like an over sized umbrella, propped open for a rain only the farmers could hope for, to cure the drought fabled to have been brought on by his dry personality. The sun's like juice from a dandelion spilled upon my cheek, my hand, a stain. It's warm and the breeze plays with the hem of my skirt as if it's goading me to join in on the fun and I watch from under a tree, maybe one that will bear apples soon - it has only begun the journey spring initiates. She sits in the sunlight running her down-turned hands across the tips of grass as I have done so many times elsewhere. A car door slams but she isn't jarred, her arms rhythmically swaying upon the ocean of another world. The kids are called home for lunch sometime after and the swings sound relieved when the wind runs through the links of chain no longer being choked by an alarming death grip of a preschooler. The slide is too bright to look at in direct sunlight, at this angle, and I think I see the moon from where I'm sitting, though one of the clouds looks like my past, so I can't be sure.
There's a lake nearby, the ducks floating in ways I'm envious of. The water isn't blue but I can see fish if they swim close enough to shore. I've always wanted to touch one, call it my best friend. They don't vary in color much, but I don't mind; there's this shop in town that has books on any type of fish imagined, and I would prefer not to have to befriend some of them, no matter their color. Sometimes there's seaweed that floats to the shore, and I'm cautious of it because it feels like wet hair and the cloud smiles down with my conscience and knows exactly who I'm forgetting to feel sorry for. The plant gets caught on the dock so I have to step in a funky dance pattern that reminds me of the freshmen dance a few years before and I wonder how there's sand where my feet fall. I reached the end so many years ago, but each time since, I've accomplished another feat and feel the need to congratulate my surprise. My toes curl around the warped boards, bending in and massaging the wood grain against the soles of my feet, a message from my fish. I jump because I want to, because I want to talk to them, and my body finally finds the sky when the sun has lit my lungs and my eyes with its magnificence, its mystery, and I think I touched a fish. I swim to the edge to hop up as the fish come to see me, to greet me, to welcome me home.
There's a lake nearby, the ducks floating in ways I'm envious of. The water isn't blue but I can see fish if they swim close enough to shore. I've always wanted to touch one, call it my best friend. They don't vary in color much, but I don't mind; there's this shop in town that has books on any type of fish imagined, and I would prefer not to have to befriend some of them, no matter their color. Sometimes there's seaweed that floats to the shore, and I'm cautious of it because it feels like wet hair and the cloud smiles down with my conscience and knows exactly who I'm forgetting to feel sorry for. The plant gets caught on the dock so I have to step in a funky dance pattern that reminds me of the freshmen dance a few years before and I wonder how there's sand where my feet fall. I reached the end so many years ago, but each time since, I've accomplished another feat and feel the need to congratulate my surprise. My toes curl around the warped boards, bending in and massaging the wood grain against the soles of my feet, a message from my fish. I jump because I want to, because I want to talk to them, and my body finally finds the sky when the sun has lit my lungs and my eyes with its magnificence, its mystery, and I think I touched a fish. I swim to the edge to hop up as the fish come to see me, to greet me, to welcome me home.