The City I Grew Up In

The city I was born in sprouted vines along the streets

And when I was an infant they would wrap themselves around my legs

I was never afraid of them

Until I got older they never really cared, not even when I stared and opened my mouth

My throat filled with things to say

Nothing came out anyway

Then I turned 16 and I walked a girl home from school

They seemed to keep an eye on me and they watched outside her bedroom window

As we sat on her bed and talked about all the colours she would dye her hair

I left her house late and the vines heard me lie to my parents

When they asked where I had been

They didn't seem to shake their heads

They didn't seem to do anything

And when I turned 17 and I broke my first bottle in the street

Sending shards of sweet cider glass into the broken creek

They watched me as I submerged myself and I sobbed uncontrollably

I broke the top off the other one and drank it in silence

Noise from the top of the gate

Noise that I didn't hear

I walked past her house after, dripping wet with pond water

But she is now a different person, her shadow behind the blind

And in her garden buried in time, the small green moving bodies of vines

They seemed to watch me as I walked

Through the silent night

And when I turned 18 I broke another bottle

This time on the bridge above the town

Watched the shards raining down

To the summer night highway

Yellow light on the bypass

Cool air thick with glass, I felt it in my eye

I walked home with a bloodshot Iris

Past the park where the first glass had shattered

Past the house where I once thought that I mattered

Past the old leafy heads of dying brown vines

And down the hill to my home

In a place I felt slipping from time

When I turned 19 the sun eventually set

And the Creek that dried up filled with water again

Spilling from the sky in a rain that never ended

I never intended to stay past 19, but the vines had died and come back to life

And they seemed to watch me once more

I walked and walked for miles, trying to find somewhere dry

Somewhere I could think

But all the houses looked the same, and the ground became a boggy sink

(The vines all learned to swim)

So I waded home again

Past the overflowing creek that still boasted my broken glass

Past the old house that someone still lived in, but wouldn't be back in again for a while

Past the bridge that had become a waterfall

And sparkled like those shards once did

I got water in my eye

When I turned 20 I felt die a little piece of me Inside

where all the glass had finally begun to make a home

And the rain had stopped last summer

I walked down the street to the creek

And fished out the remains of glass that were there

Buried beneath time and silt

And I sat in her front yard biding my time

Until she came out to see who was watching her

(It wasn't the vines, they had all died)

It was me instead I tipped my head

And called it a sign of the times

She touched my head with so many colours in her hair

That I almost forgot the ground wasn't her bed

And when I eventually picked myself up

I felt the glass and the grip it had around my legs

Loosen and fall away

I opened my mouth with things to say

But nothing came out anyway