Poetry and All Things Alike

Carter

It was like looking at a picture of a tree on an otherwise blank canvas- you could never tell how large it was. You never really knew it's impact.

It was so still, so silent.

Until he drew a background. A simple one. Grass, clouds, the sun, some flowers and a little girl with her dog.

----

He was a tree, laying on his back in an open field while people walked past him. While dogs sniffed his toes until he would crinkle his freckles and giggle at their cool noses.

In his dreams he rubbed the silk on the retriever's ears. In his dreams he got up and left the field after a picnic with his brother, and went home to hug his dad and to kiss his mom on the cheek. He would look out his window at night- waiting- and pull on his cape when someone cried for help. In his dreams he would run 6 miles to the bottom of the ocean every night. In his dreams, he stood in front of his fire place in May, hand in hand with the girl who handed him a blue crayon in kindergarten, while his mom covered her mouth and kept herself from crying.

If only he weren't glued, belly up, on a filed.

----

When the heart monitor began screaming in a high pitched monotone, he had already been numb to the world for months. He didn't hear the thump when his dad fell to his knees. Or the cry of agony his mom made as she grabbed at his body, trying to shake the life back into her first grader. He didn't look into his brothers eyes as he began to shake. Scared, confused, brother less.

His eyes faced the painfully bright fluorescent light, highlighting the shadows under his eyes. However, he was only sleeping.

After spending a year living in a body that was killing every fiber of his cells one by one, the dull expression on his face wasn't a knew scence.

They spent a year preparing, but the grief had no damper. his dad still cried silently in the shower at night. His brother still had nightmares, and hi mother still cried, because half of her world had sunk into the sea, and all she wanted was the other half to explode so she could let herself drown. So she wouldn't have to hold her husbands hand as her 6 year old son was lowered into the earth, holding Captain America's shield against his tiny chest.

----

This is what it's like looking at a tree on a blank canvas. This is what its like, to draw with a shaking hand, a field around your brother's body. How it hurts to paint the girl with the blue crayon, and the silky ears of the retriever, that his paralyzed fingers never got to pet.

And how it hurts to realize that the tree is huge.