Fish Pond Poem

Oh, I longed for it long before it

happened: I recall now the very day

The sun started shining brighter;

the birds, Beckoning, chirping

piano notes in the morning;

Her warm kiss marking my pale skin so

I began to freckle, Basking

under the sweet shine of spring-summer breeze

The lakeside lounging, campus commute, Sparse

student population in their supplemental courses

Still,

I favored the summer on Manasquan Beach

Blistering, yearning for four hour's freedom

Independence in distance, in decision,

A different identity, an entity buried within

Reflecting sentiments that represent

the mental moment of each locale

I remembered who I was at home,

in my mother's company and the comforting odor of her

still lit joint,

Stretching out on the vibrant dandelion yellow tanning

chair

Just outside the kitchen window

Wondering how I would survive the summers end,

thinking about that day at Fish Pond with those girls,

my classmates, the scent of their shitty cigarettes and

the nausea they brought me;

reminiscing the beating Massachusetts May heat

and the beads of sweat that pushed out of my tattoos

or the way one crept through the knee-height

water screaming, shivering as she splashed

lakewater up onto the other

I thought myself into the abyss this summer,

out of my hell and into the waiting room,

Counting calories and running myself dry,

in the dark alongside drunken New Yorkers and into

thick woods where the light couldn't reach me–

Seeing my best friends as often as I could and

still Not enough, never enough, as all things

tend to be Curling up on the dark chocolate couch

that swallows you whole

with the Twilight series and a cat purring in my lap,

drinking more coffee than the

cardiologist recommends

I stayed up all night sobbing & drove

to Del Water Gap

the next morning, hiked nine miles,

and hobbled home humbled by the

distance Sitting at the inlet in my car

loitering well past midnight with empty thought

I think I healed something this summer;

After a month and change rotting,

I recollected the pieces of myself that the school year

had scattered

(The shattered remains of my psyche)

and I patchworked them into something mosaic and

imperishable

I remembered what it was to feel love, to feel the sun

kiss my cheeks, to see in psychedelic yellow

I remembered that the sun rises

even in winter, even in tiny towns in Massachusetts,

And that there will always be happiness, somewhere Left

at Fish Pond.