Little Infinities

You know when you were a little kid

And someone would push you on the swing set?

You kept laughing,

Your slowly growing hair

Whipped your face

And got stuck in your watering eyes

But you didn’t care.

You kept laughing,

Wanting to go higher, and higher;

Maybe, one day,

You could reach the top.

Maybe you could stare down at the metal pole

And the silver chains that held your seat above your head

That your little kid butt is almost hovering out of,

Maybe you could stare up into the sky

Like you were part of it.

Nothing

Was impossible,

And you would be the one to prove it.

You would make that swing set feel

like you were flying.

 

The years between that little girl and me

Blurred together in a mess of insanity, hopelessness,

And surrender,

Things

that little girl couldn’t begin

to imagine.

The years between that girl and me

Were littered with late night wishes and trips to drive-ins with shooting stars,

Every small thing that could amaze us

Did

And everything that couldn’t

sure tried to.

Sunrises were painted with

Feelings

I didn’t want to comprehend,

But she felt much too deeply;

Lyrics filled my mind

In the same way melodies filled her heartbeats;

We

Were one in the same,

But our lives

Kept us apart.

 

She

Always wanted to go higher,

Wanted to laugh

Like she would never run out of breath,

Wanted to

Shoot for the moon.

I

Would always land among the stars,

Was never

Bright enough to be seen in the ocean of

Black and gold that she

So desperately

needed to be a part of, but maybe

that’s why my light went out in the first place.

 

Her name was Sunshine for the obvious reasons.

She lit up

Any room she walked into with her

Golden hair and crooked smile;

She was loud, and a little sassy.

She always

Saw the world for what it could be.

All she ever wanted

was to be happy.

Abbie,

On the other hand,

Isn’t known by anything.

She’s known for her nose in a notebook,

Writing words she can’t say to people

Who need to hear them

And dreaming of the day she’s free.

She doesn’t know

What it is that’s keeping her,

Just that it’s

Killing her and the ray

She still tries to carry in her heart.

 

The air beneath that girl’s feet

Sent her heart rate through the roof

With the ebb and flow of

Every swing.

Older sets creaked

The higher she flew and she knew

That wasn’t okay,

But she would go higher anyway,

Going past her comfort zone,

Learning to depend on herself for the momentum

She wanted;

Learning to depend on herself for bigger things

Than a childish dream.

She never dreamed of sitting still until

She laid in bed,

Praying for strength to get up

When her dreams

Were at an all time low.

The older swing sets creaked

Like her bones started to,

Joints aching with a heavy backpack

Filled with burdens big enough to keep

even her wandering eyes on the ground.

The stars and moon

Were way too far to shoot for,

But she had better targets in mind.

 

Some kids�"

The braver ones�"

Jumped off their seats like a baby bird from its nest,

Almost expecting to grow wings and

Fly away.

Broken bones were the entrance fee

For a club Sunshine wouldn’t hurt herself to be in.

She never wanted to fly away,

Just to be above it all, close enough to the sky to reach out her hand and taste

Cotton candy clouds

On sugar coated lips,

Since candy was the only thing her mother could feed someone

As sweet as her.

But the bitter reality of her classmates

Clashed with her wide-eyed wonder

And threw her into a whirlpool of degrading

And name calling

Her parents never believed but second hand supported,

Disregarding the claw marks

Without so much as a second glance and allowing the chains from her old swing set

To shackle her instead.

 

You know when you were a little kid

And someone would push you on the swing set?

You kept laughing,

Until whoever’s hand prints were still tingling on your back

Decided that it was time to go.

Your infinity shrank in seconds,

Leaving nothing but the empty swaying seat as an indication

You were actually there.

 

We swayed like the empty seat,

Slipping the chains from our wrists that shouldn’t

Have been able to fit.

Our dreams hung from the bags under our eyes,

Sleep only came to us

When pills that still tingled in our throats decided

It was time to go and hours of darkness

Stretched through infinity,

Twinkling golds we forgot existed living

In some deep folds of our brain.

We thought the lights had burnt out.

 

You know when you were a little kid

And someone would push you on the swing set?

There was that moment of free fall when

You know you’ll never be able to touch infinity, but

You feel sad about it anyway.

Everything

Pulls away from your fingers as you slide

Back down to earth,

Remembering reality sucks and

Smiling a little less than before.

 

In the air,

Our infinity was beautiful but now,

Your hands still tingle on the small of my back,

Sending chills up my spine that I can’t ignore

As you try push me back up,

Convinced our infinity

Is hanging on just above us;

I’m not a child anymore.