We looked at each other
and there was that smile
that looked like another lie
but was more real than truth itself.
It’s been years since that laughter
that we all had together
in the crappy old haunted room
on the back of our go-to place.
We had our best there,
our worst too,
some screaming evenings of horror
in the ruins of its deep despair.
But we had our hands, and that one shivering torch
that guided the adventure
past the curve of the smelly hallway and broken floors.
Maybe that was the connecting chain
or just another segment to put down
in the scripts of history
that we carved for ourselves.
And what better place to run along
than the vines and broken shelves
ofa place that brew out negativity
among a group that had adventures for every snack.
We had our song of lullaby
that preached to arouse courage
in times the despair got to us
or darkness was just being addictive.
We had our names
to forge a brotherhood among strangers
that come from places unscathed
by the memory that we hold of them.
And with that was the treasure box,
a box full of all the journeys
that we let reality rail for us
and those that we battered down the forsaken fire
we had forged within us.
It’s been another life that we lived
outside of the world we had created
in the brim of happiness and memories that we spun
in a time we left behind
a long time ago.
And now, we were back there,
the place more in ruins than garbage itself,
but brighter and lit in every respect,
the memories recalling every cry that we prevented
or every lie that we repeated
to keep the horror at bay
and brew out the fighter that we all had.
The box pushed to the deep corner calling to us,
hoping for hands a bit bigger and yet the same,
wishing for giggles somewhat diminished but of the same intense,
believing in minds that pushed everything
to come back to the people they had left behind,
to the scripts they needed reviving,
to come back to themselves
carved in the reaches of our treasure box.
·poetry