Into The Yard (2021 Version)

In the yard, behind the little blue house on Tamea Rd, I wielded a wooden sword on top of a dirt hill mountain. I fought with gallantry next to you, my friend. You and your brother were kings, and I was a queen; our castle a barren rabbit hutch and our thrones forged from the bones of the fallen giant whose branches once held home to robins and their hungry babies. Our Papa watched from shabby single-pane windows happy to give us refuge from our lives at home.

We were the children of men who had wandered, who left our kingdom vulnerable. We were left behind on common grounds, warriors that fought the battles that they were too cowardly to fight themselves. The yard was our kingdom, a place to rest our sleepy eyes. We dressed in bath towel and clothespin capes, and we felt safe. It's hard to believe that we were just kids, but when I look back, I don’t think about the nights I spent frightened or alone – I think of you.

Down by the stream we caught water skeeters that skimmed the surface and washed the dirt off our sunburned cheeks. I tended to your wounds and mothered you when you were sad. I remember your face so clearly, my own pine needle eyes staring back at me, and freckled nose scrunched when I told you to keep it clean. Sometimes now, I look back and wonder if we knew that we would grow apart. I like to think that we did, but we were brave enough to think that we could fight it off if we had each other.

Papa bought some saplings; he gave us each a shovel and we trudged to the far-off corner of our kingdom. When the afternoon sun began to set in the west and we wiped the sweat from our foreheads, we placed our saplings in the ground. They were weak like us, but one day we would look out into our kingdom and see a thick forest, strong like we hoped we would be. Stronger than the men and women that came before us. Stronger than the cards that had been dealt for us. Papa smiled, his influence on us leaving better children to this world than the ones he raised.

The weekdays were isolation, the clock in the hall outside my room ticked as time slipped through my fingers into the past. I spent each day waiting out my sentence until I could be returned to my place with you. My mother would do her best, as mothers try to do, but even mothers couldn’t protect us from the dangers that lurked. My father was not like yours, mine gave me a shield to help me forge my path. His mistakes a cautionary story to tell me and keep me from the kingdom's edge and one day I would forgive him; your father who is wicked as wicked comes formed his into a tale where the villain lives happily ever after.

As we drew power from the land that we tramped, we missed what was happening behind closed doors. Our oasis seemingly untouched while Papa’s health began to fail. Whispers from the house, made us profoundly aware of this unknown threat, what would happen to what we built if he were no longer there? We reacted as children do; we built a fortress around the castle, to prepare for an ever-impending attack. The wood planks and small boulders foraged from an abandoned mill down the road. We forged weapons from the rusted nails we pulled from the mill’s fallen infrastructure and brandished them when your mother came to grab your wrist and drag you to the car. I wish I knew then that would be the last time I would fight beside you, my friend.

With Papa’s last breath, our kingdom was ripped from our grasp. The furniture moved, the rabbit hutch torn from the foundation, and the land that was so inherently ours now home to strangers. At the funeral, I stood alone, in a black dress and stockings that itched the back of my knees, longing for my grass-stained jeans. I scanned the room for you, I wanted to hold your hand and stand united against the forces that brought hot tears to the corner of my eyes. Instead, I choked back salty gasps and stared angrily at the carnations, red with the spilled blood of the only person who had kept us together.

After that day, I no longer felt like a child. No need for whimsical fantasies with my dearest friends in a yard. That was my defining moment between young and grown. I never truly addressed how I felt, I dug a hole inside my heart and buried it deep. Now and then a memory would surface, and I hit the bottle, sharing whiskey kisses from the tip of my tongue to find the company of men. The pain would ease, and I’d go about my life until it happened again, only to repeat the cycle. I often imagine what it would look like if I hadn’t had the grief of losing Papa or the grief of losing you, would I have become a proper lady? Would I have trusted men enough to find one who would treat me right? Would you stand in place of my father and give me away on my wedding day?

And then I heard you got a new habit, one not unlike your fathers. I don’t know if it was ever possible for you to escape the sirens call for poison pulsing through your veins. Sometimes I think I’m the one who tied a tourniquet to your arm, if I’d been there to hear your secrets and hold your hand, you wouldn’t need to dodge yourself.

The ice clinked in my crystal glass, amber liquid splashed as I took a sip and opened another message that came from you to my phone. You asked me for 20 bucks, you promised you would pay me back, you would get some money soon but your brother – I think about him too, his scraped knees and dragon heart fighting along beside us– won’t help you out and you didn’t know where else to turn. I apologized; I just paid my bills. Even so, this wasn’t the first time you’d asked, and I know better than to be accepting wooden nickels.

I found myself outside Tamea Rd. Our saplings a forest towering over the kingdom that had fallen in shadows. The new owners built a fence, a balustrade meant to keep me out. I heaved myself over and toppled to the ground with ax and bottle in hand. I took a swig and wielded my weapon at a trunk made from our history. I swung again for all the time that was stolen from us, for the men who left us here in the first place, for all the times I knew I could have saved you. I wondered if you felt it as the first tree fell and I took back our kingdom, for you, my friend.