Wild: For you, Hero

Sitting in your room,
I look up.


The bell has rung.
The half-day is over.
I'm already forgetting my Junior schedule,
latching onto this detail or that I can't fret over.

It's like someone wiped a year clean.
Time for a new life.

Adult life does that every day,
but I don't understand that.

I think about my room at home
which is dark at all hours of the day regardless
filled with books and thoughts and treasures and promises
breaths and magic and love
and I swallow my heart.

There's a play script or two on my bed there;
I know where to go.

I run to your room. I take deep breaths until my heart rate slows.

it's okay. You're there.

I step inside and greet you.
We talk.
I avoid saying what I actually want to say,
I'll miss you. Thank you for making me not let the human part die,
because damn it that was a close one,
Please don't be too angry about Finley, and why are you looking at me like that? 

...Oh yeah. I'm odd...


Your opinion, for once in my life, didn't matter.
You were alone. I was alone.
Alone together.

There is, I think
a companionship
in being alone together, Schultz.

I didn't know what to give you
so I acted like I was then.

And even though I, like Kate,
have changed
tremendously
whenever I am lonely, whenever I haven't spoken in hours
or more than once

I close my eyes
and I'm back in your room again
talking to you while you stare at me, trying to will me away
like a fly

or I'm walking through the auditorium, touching the stained fabric
smelling the dust on the curtains
walking through the shop before anyone else is there, just looking at the ceiling
sitting in the costume shop pretending to sew

So I am thinking
if you miss that room
if you miss those moments
if you miss our stage
close your eyes
and find yourself there.


Close your eyes, my Hero,
and you'll be there.











You
are always there,
to me.