Playground Calluses

Laying sideways to icy wooden floors, to bedsheets

I went to the window screen to feel summer humidity

Cross hatched marks on my face at 6 am with one bird calling

I taught classes of toads and sticks with drawn faces on them

For hours, I thought I would grow up to be a teacher

Sharpie markers were always warm

Homeostasis was the outdoor classroom

When I was little, comfort was being a teacher

In high school, I came home to silence and pizza delivery

I relished in folded blankets and solitude

My hands still had calluses from park swings

Peaks of white on red and brown hands

Mountaintops of reminders from a good day past

Comfort was wrapped in the glow of a laptop screen

The teenage years were quiet and so were the fall leaves

It wasn't hard for me to write about the trees

When adult life engulfed me, I wasn't used to murky seas

Comfort became credit cards swiping and Saturday laundry

I smiled when sushi was brought home

I liked walking to work in fuzzy socks that felt like carpet

Buses and trains carried me where gas in my car couldn't

When the candles were timidly lit and the fire danced next to my eyes

Comfort became routine