bits of life

18 - playground swings

can we fly back to when times were simple?
when the biggest problem
was how timmy with the striped shirt
swiped my pretty plastic bracelet
then sold it for a dirt ball shooter.
or maybe it was how i scraped the toes
of my brand new shoes
against the concrete ground that was
splattered with chalk drawings
and my brand new shoes
got stained a bright neon pink.

back then,
i met you on the playground swings.
you sat there,
alone,
looking out for some friends
in the big wide world
of the playground on 83rd street. 

i sat next to you,
shuffling my neon pink stained shoes,
and asked if you'd play on the seesaw with me,
and i remember you looked at me,
then at my pigtails and overalls.

you said yes.

so together we sat on the olive green seesaw,
staring into each other's eyes,
watching as the world tipped up and down,
with my neon pink stained shoes hitting the ground,
and your dull grey ones hitting it too.

but then all of a sudden,
we had real problems, the kind that mommy would say
in a serious toned voice, probably close to yelling.
you went off with vicky from the monkey bars.
so i went off with paul from the ladders,
but you got mad.

was that right?
and we fought over a lot -
crayons (love),
shoes (broken hearts),
toys (money),
jackets (other loves).

so even if it started out so simple,
with just you, me, a swing set, a seesaw, and some shoes...
it would never stay that way.