The Basement Window: A Poem about Bygone Friendship, Time, and the Leftovers
I’m in our old neighborhood.
After divorce, trauma, the meteors of life finally
falling out of the starlight.
Living is pugilistic and I’m rope-burned,
beaten, my bruises calcified into scars
playing on my body in tattoos without ink.
You moved decades ago.
I drive by your old home,
The chestnut siding, ivy, and Hostas sit the same
and the basement window to you bedroom
the white blinds, folded, quiet,
a dragon-eye tightly shut.
Our memories the beast’s horde,
if only it knew how priceless they truly were.
Friday and Saturday nights were
poignant Final Fantasy, ferocious Tekken, laughing Mario Kart,
with waxy pizza, freckled popcorn, and
a roofless temple of Mountain Dew bottles
beneath a pixelated and polygon sun.
A curriculum of puberty too, those anime
hips and breasts, stunning us with curves and bounces.
I’ve been by at night, and the square of
window light glows familiar against the gloom,
like we were still in there
laughing at Dragon Ball Z and Ranma 1/2.
Sharing dreams, crushes, destinations, and future lives.
I’m happy for you,
long gone from the sill and soil,
but why did I
get left behind?
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