The 90's

Nostalgia

I have the scars to prove I was a kid once. I was. It was only a few years ago; night games and scabs and radio requests and Legos and GI Joes and grass stains and a mom to lie to. Mom, I lost track of time! I swear! Dear childhood friends, I’ll never forget you. I learned drama and how to fight and basketball and Green Day and roller blades and skateboards and snipers and digging holes and jumping bikes and meeting you halfway. Can you sleep over tonight? They said we were attached at the hips. Through school suspensions and sprained ankles and soccer practice and skinned knees, we raked yards, shoveled driveways, painted numbers on the curbs. I asked a girl out for you and you broke up with one for me. We were a team that bickered and bitched and bled. In halls we would stand backs to lockers, make fun of the kid with the chipped teeth. He gave me a shiner. Through dark, alien nights, my memories serve me a story: A mother moving a teenager, a child, another child, siblings and confused, town to town, husband to husband. I have more stepfathers than they have in the movies. It’s okay, just another card to expect in the mail on my birthday. Birthdays at bowling allies; Mortal Kombat and Sega Genesis. We all watched Fantasia enough to mix memories and cartoons to the point that reality becomes loose. This girl scrawled “do you like me?” on my desk and I blushed. I didn’t know what having a crush meant. My first kiss was a hundred quick pecks all over my face from a girl whose face I can’t recall anymore because remembering Ninja Turtles was more important when I was six. I lost toys in yards and under beds and overflowing closets. My clothes weren’t hand-me-down, they were just gigantic. We door-bell ditched and left flaming bags of s**t with a gallon of water in it so when you picked it up it would spill everywhere. And toilet paper. And eggs. Water balloons. Vandalism and graffiti. I’ve drawn enough roaring penises and peed my name in the snow. I did my homework and donated it to your cause, so you could pass and I would fail. A girl caught me picking my nose. I left gum on the bottoms of desks. The first heart I broke was only twelve. The seven seconds in heaven scared me, she wasn’t popular enough. I wasn’t popular enough. Pogs. Crayons. Playgrounds and parks, we’d meet half way. We memorized phone numbers and got grounded from the phone and played with matches and dressed up for school pictures. Pluto was a planet, summer was vacation, our lungs were clean and our legs were sticks. The mall was ambition, the journey, the terminus, where all good things met. I had a hiding place so secluded that I reigned king of Hide and Seek. For every tree climbed, a lawn was mowed. Saturdays meant sun tans and snowmen. Sundays meant boring and laundry and movies and TV and family. We would meet half way, middle of the street middle of the night, embraced crying so sorry for saying those things, after all, we’re only kids, and you’re my best friend, and I’ll never, ever know another. My mom says it’s okay if your mom says it’s okay. Halloween wasn’t just a holiday, it was a career and an art and for one night every year it lasted forever. Holding hands and staying up late. A JC Penny catalog was currency. I thought I invented jacking off. Girlfriends and boyfriends and best friends and high friends and strangers and the whole world wasn’t so big, because we knew everything and we were big kids and we had an entire weekend or summer or Christmas vacation to make things right. Hopscotch, jump ropes, show and tell. I hung pictures in my locker. I faked stomach aches to stay home and lied about homework and sluffed classes. I spent dozens of dollars in arcades and not a penny was wasted. I barfed up candy and crashed my bike and my skateboard and my rollerblades and I fell off trampolines. Under the bed scared me and I learned to run and jump far and fast. I heard that if you say Bloody Mary one hundred times in the dark in the mirror in the night something might happen but we never could. We captured the flag and we cleared the lava and we followed the leader. Simon said Rock, Paper, Scissors send Red Rover right over. We built forts, we dug moats, we had passwords and secret handshakes and we passed notes. Talkboys and mixtapes and boom boxes. We once stole a cigarette and were cool for three puffs until the spins kicked in and I let loose my breakfast over your shirt while you laughed and fell on your a*s and cried from the giggles that wouldn’t stop couldn’t stop filled my ears for a number of years until one day you were gone and I was grown and even though I can still remember your phone number, I can never meet you halfway. You’re gone, gone, gone and everything is small and serious and big and serious and no laughing aloud allowed in this new digital decade. Once we played in the streets day or night rain or shine but now we work for the bills and the rent and the laws and the debt and the man. Once we were grounded, now we’re incarcerated. Once we were young, but now we are old.

Author's Note

tell me how it is

Reviews

[Sean Patrick Gray]

"I have the scars to prove I was a kid once". Well if that isn't perfectly said, I don't know what is. Great piece man, had me thinking about the good old days of riding bikes and pretending to be X-Men in the backyard. Running around in the woods and trying to fight imaginary bad guys.

How children tend to think amazes me. You're thrown into a world where everything is free, and love is endless. You need something? Here it is sweetie. Want to go outside and play?

I write this review as I stare wearily at a phone bill. Too much work to do today. My back hurts. Is that a gray hair? All while my kids play X-Men in the next room...

[IWRITE]

f**k yes. thank you so much for reading and commenting. i feel for ya man. i played the f**k out of xmen as a kid!

[Sean Patrick Gray]

Gambit ftw! haha

[Cindy Marietta]

This is brilliant, you have some great f*****g lines in there..too many to quote. Totally dig this

[The Twin Arenas]

Once we were grounded, now we're incarcerated.

"you can always go back, but you can't go back all the way" - Robert Zimmerman

nice little piece.

[Meat of Dog]

Holy nostalgia! Sorry it took me so long to read this, been sick, but I’m really glad I did! I recall vividly a lot of these things, and I feel like it’s so easy to forget our childhoods as we get sucked into life and obligation/ responsibility. This piece is very relatable for kids of this time and reminded me of a LOT of things I forgot about, blocked out, and or lost in time. When I was a kid I remember being mystified by every single forest clearing I saw and it always became a ‘hideout’ and I recall letting people in (including friends), fighting, kicking them out, letting them back in, and on and on. Forgiveness was so easy then because fights were so petty. Ah god, and recorder button mix tapes… I can also relate to your best childhood friend suddenly being ‘gone’ be it from death, as a social casualty (drugs), or whatever else and suddenly all those great childhood things don’t matter anymore. The ending was sad, but all too real. Thank you very much for writing this/ asking me to read it! Very reminiscent and well written.

Suggestions:

“pecks all overmy face” Needs a space. Also here: “memorizedphone numbers” and here: “forschool pictures”