Home for the Holy Day

I came home one sunny June the 18th
I found all the places around my house
Where I used to play and talk to friends
I sat on the old swing set and rust stained my pants
The whole thing seemed like a movie
It was more of a documentary though really
Maybe even just a TV show length production
Coming Home:
today's episode- Steven Chambers from North Shepardsville, IL

I ran my fingers around the fence that I painted
My father paid me way too much for that job
It felt like an old wooden friend
Not even ready to yield after all of those years
It gave me a nice big splinter in my thumb
Old friends hold grudges and make new ones
They push them up out of the hard wood
Fences can't aim though or I would have splinters in my eyes

I felt the grass on my bare feet after chucking my shoes
It felt cold and new like a sterile resurrection
The bugs didn't bother me as much anymore
I lay down and felt it in my hands
Pulling it like your hair
I mean pulling it like the hair of some beautiful woman
I laugh thinking about meeting new people
The sun is so bright in my brand new eyes

The realtor was so nice to give me the bronze keys
Some time to myself and a knowledge of the past
I go from room to room, crossing myself slowly
I've brought a black notebook and I read aloud
Slowly intoning phrases and key syllables
The whole thing seems whitewashed
Which is fitting enough for me at this point

My bedroom takes me several hours alone
Meditation never struck me as very useful
So I just stared and yelled at the ghosts
That happy little kid running back and forth
Calling his friends and rushing too fast
I tried to trip him but he isn't even there at all

My parents were so beautiful and I see them
In every room they hover and I gaze awhile
A hollow buzzing fills all of my senses
I strike a deal with God to bring it all back
But the outlines remain gray and distant
Like the tombstones in the cemetery far from here

As if this is a message to go ahead I lay down
I brought a sleeping bag and I rest now
My body curls in the night as I dream
I meant to have one last adolescent dream
A fantasy or a final super-vivid pleasant memory
I dreamt of a blue pall on your face
Your visage was unknowable and beyond my thoughts
Nothing is perfect anymore, oh the humanity
I wake up groggy and my head is heavy like lead

I step out into the backyard right at dawn
I always hated the dawn
You kept your grudges like the fences taught you
My memories never meant something to you
I made it through twenty years without you
I was only happy twice in that short span of time
You proved one a fake and derided the other
There is nothing left for me
Neatly scripted in the black notebook
Placed on the rotting picnic table
Here where it prospered I will conquer the whole civilization
The dawn of a new age comes with a literal dawn
Pull that trigger