29 Mar Open Air by Sapphyre Smith
There by the wind-wake and diesel fumes, peeling off the road
I can chase a younger version of me to the playground
It’s dark; I can barely see
the swings, but once I’m there I’m a ghost
a dark sweatshirt on a pendulum, a metronome of flesh and bone swinging through empty space
back and forth
trading breaths with winter
I wake up small
again on the swingset
almost sure I can feel short bangs brushing my forehead, braids my mother wove for picture day
clinging staticked to the itchy sweater vest
all curled around the edges of a gap-toothed grin
(my teeth aren’t straightened yet)
The veined arms of a blackened tree stretch out to embrace a cold sky,
the moon is just a streetlamp,
and my shoes block the waxy glow on the upswing,
holes worn through blue inner soles
years had rubbed the treads smooth on carpeted hallways studded with
spilled aquarium pebbles and road salt and crumbled granola
(I’ve worn them since I was thirteen)
but it’s been too long since I was a child—
when I let go at the apex to fly again, I misjudge the landing,
stumble on grown-up legs
and when my ankle twists, first I think:
the medical tape I bought two months ago
how to get to class
will I need to go to the doctor
Then, I think:
the gap-toothed girl would’ve just cried.
All for nothing, anyway. I walk it off,
tuck loose hair behind new piercings she would’ve never imagined
and leave the ghost of myself on the still-rocking swing;
She can find her own way home.