Playground Ruins

 

The swingset is rust now.

Grass eats at the slide
where once we burned our thighs in summer.
Children play here still,
but they are not us.
They will never be us.

We used to dig holes with sticks,
pretend we were explorers.
Now the holes are filled,
the explorers buried
under tax forms and traffic lights.

I walk past the playground
like one walks past an old lover:
half-aching,
half-ashamed.
Because I know what it gave me,
and what it took away.

The innocence of believing
adults knew what they were doing.
The cruelty of being laughed at
for shoes not branded enough.
The confusion of first love
disguised as playground dares.

Every laugh is still lodged in the soil.
Every cruelty too.
The earth keeps them both,
refusing to choose.