We felt ourselves hapless victims of childhood
arms folded, sulkin’
not another five minutes to play
gotta go back to school on Monday
childhood didn’t fill our boots
so we outgrew them quicker than we meant to
I’d already been under the scalpel
chest wide open with the swirl of finger tips in gloves
digging to the heart of the matter
then sewing me back up in blue
like blue laces
knotting up my chest
the place where secrets get kept
I worried they’d seep through
now that I was a boot
what if I wasn’t weather proof?
the rain would fall and the soul of my socks would squelch
I heard the other kid died in surgery
I wondered at that, but not for too long, because I was young
but it left it’s mark
I grew up with bubblegum breath
and a sheen of tears
’cause the other kids said I was weird
I played on the street after school
I thought my friends back home thought I was cool
which was a different aspect to what I knew
in that place of learning
but they got pulled up by their ears
soon saw me for being weird
and that was that.
I felt a discarded boot
a bullseye only a target to shoot
so I ran in the woods to the river
skipped stones and became greener than my roots