Untitled memory

I remember my kite.
A blue diamond I carried around
all of the time, like a dream
folded into my back pocket;
a good book too good to share
both tattered with wear and tear
worn in like bare feet in the summer.

Its tail was my shadow
echoing down a long corridor
too big and spilling out of me
like youth when it gets too big
for penny loafers and expectations.

I was on my way to class
with footsteps heavy
as the books I was supposed to read,
but you learn to carry it
even when their covers were their only weight
and you learn that real life
is a homework assignment
and you learn
to keep your dream in a back pocket,
folded up, waiting.

I remember my kite
as I pull it from a trunk
of all my youth’s stuff
stuffed into a box in the corner
like a child in “time out.”
It never did see the sun
but from behind a window pane.
It never did find its wind.
And I have yet to fly.

d.m.riggs. is a writer and poet, living in knoxville, tn. he’s badder than bad bad leroy brown. though not necessarily clever. http://d-m-riggs.xanga.com/

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