Always This

My old home and a blue sky,

The evening sunlight in my eyes,

Remembering ’08 in winter fields

And back to summer on the lake

Describing my home to him thousands

Of miles away,

And how I forgot to tell him about

The Christmas lights

And the comfort of the cold air,

The children laughing on their way home

And the way it feels in October when I’m

Walking through soggy streets.

And how many worlds stand between us?

And my slice of his childhood 10 years

Ago still echoes,

And I wonder if I could ever really swap this life for

That; snow every December and ice skating

In the old school playground.

Would those memories ever replace what I

See now in front of me, would the seasons

Shift from orange trees to knee deep

In snow and rooms full of tinned food

Just in case?

Of this, I’m unsure because somehow,

Somewhere, I will always be this.

Always that bench and that first kiss,

Always that bridge where for one year things

Made sense,

Always that summer and those faces,

Always me and the other half of me

Discovered at 14 and never lost despite

What happened on New Year’s Eve three years ago.

Always the boy down the street who

Forgave what I did to him on Christmas Night

2009,

And the way he still comes around for coffee,

Asks about my Mother and says he likes

My new haircut.

And despite what he has to lose by being here

He stays still,

And does not falter in the name of new

Dedications or worrisome green eyed

Girls,

A loyalty I know won’t alter even

If the girl next door returns his

Affections and his voice echoes through

The thin walls of our shared home.

A silence and a city that

Glows with days passed;

My home for now,

My home forever

Even if my lungs take their

Final breath on a foreign land.