a gauze of memory  wraps my day in a warm cocoon

when it gets too shitty outside to keep putting up with shit

I remember how the sun coming through the oak leaves made bright splashes

on the grass and how they would disappear like magic when clouds floated by

I remember the oozing mud at the bottom of the fill dirt backyard and the oily

sheen that seemed to be liquid rainbows at low tide

I wanted to build a little raft and float down the marsh to unknown parts

explore like DeSoto did, see things for the first time before people were around

That wanderlust grew into an unbearable sense of desperation to escape, to run,

to be in a place where nobody knew me and I could be who I was

Then I turned 9 and real life smacked me right between the eyes but the desperation

just buried itself in my intuitive sense of powerlessness to do anything just yet