College Assignments Dude

He and I

He is waking up on Christmas morning without a gift,

 without decorations, without stockings stuffed, without cookies fractured.

 He is an empty tree, with empty branches; nothing but a single strand of popcorn wrapped around his arms­­—

I hate popcorn.

            I am a new puppy.

 I will follow where you walk, big brown eyes fixed.

 I am anxious and excited about every small thing: every car window, every open door, every scrap from the dinner table,

 every time you come home.

He is a big red bow. I am tugging at the ends.

 He is an empty box. I am still hopeful.

            We are a mountain filled with hot lava and our past is that of Pompeii.

I try to justify the damage by building a city on the ruins and using the old name, but the demolition has yet to lay dormant. 

I wonder if the city was just a beautiful way to see destruction meet hard work.

We erupted. 

When the ash clouded our eyes we must have mistook vacancy for a vaccination. How did we believe the doctor’s empty offices and excellent service fell hand in hand? How did we decide the red matter was no longer toxic in our relationship?

He was all kinds of red, but his red wasn’t just the lava, wasn’t just a bow; his red was how I filled in the pictures. It laced my thoughts and controlled my time. I watched Wizard of Oz and hoped if I clicked his red and my heels together we could find a way home.

 But he was more poison and I was more granny smith.

 His red was always his.

            I waited a hundred years for a safe place to build. He waited a mere two before he found his way back to the city.

 Looking back I can see the fences and the warning signs, the radio alerts and the way the history books were supposed to make you afraid.

 I never believed such a small mountain could be hiding such terrible things. I just wanted to build.

  He is a million lights hung just before the first snow, but one by one he will burn out in the cold.

 He is candy canes that taste like black licorice and he will tell you he tastes like sugarplum.

 He is cheap glue at the family gingerbread party and he is always one gum drop too short.

            I am too young to know better and too new to understand.

 I will make a mess of your carpet and I won’t learn the rules until the third scolding.

 I will be left behind for family vacations, soccer games;

 I will be put away for birthday parties, fancy dinners, movie nights; 

but I will show you the same love as our very first day every single time you pick me up.

  I do not wish to fit so easily behind a fence, or behave so poorly in front of your new friends. 

He does not wish to be remembered as the wrong shades of red.

 We do not wish to numb the city, but we know nothing better.