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