Little Boat

There are days when I look up,

and the sky gleams a fluorescent blue.

Diamond clouds dotting the expansive sky,

like chocolates on a cake.

There are days when I look up,

and the sky is torn in two.

Scarred by black burns and cut by thunder,

like remnants of a home.

The sun, quick in its escape, would hide.

and the clouds, despairingly abandoned, would cry.

The winds would pick up, cutting the mast,

leaving me adrift for days on end.

I found myself alone.

Clutching my small paper sides against the towering river walls,

with nothing for comfort but the quiet remembrance of the past.

The past of a childhood with simple pleasures,

jumping off the bus, running along the sidewalk, and heading home.

Before I knew it, the past was over, I had to go.

My parents had taught me that to exist was to ready my stern and set sail,

yet nobody had told me what laid beyond,

nobody had told me how to return.