instead of dreaming

I watch them sleeping from a chair. Inches away. Lose myself in the hideously flowered concept of a comforter. Flash through memories of playing touch-down with Paul and Bryan when we were kids and didn’t realize that life would empty us out like marbles from a bag. Scattering away in unknown directions. Paul is on a swing. Bryan and I sit in the grass holding hands. And I can hear him laughing. Laughing like crashing through a pile of dead leaves. blank Pink and mauve flowers against a quilted maze of emerald shapes wanting to be leaves. blink I’m throwing rocks. Heavy smooth rocks the color of elephants. I’m throwing rocks onto a pile of rocks. And I hear them thump. Thump. Thump against one another, as I recoil then release. It’s all I hear. The solidness of a rock and it’s resistance to penetration. The repetition of the action itself unchanged and, yet, always moving.