Where Green Grass Doesn’t Grow

The twilight of dawn flowed through my window when the quiet blue found me

today like it did yesterday,

surrounded

by a pale glow

that filled my bedroom.

It painted ceilings,

It painted walls, and It painted me dull too.

Lying across the bed, blankets in a bunch,

the morning sun found me and cast dancing shadows upon my skin.

This is when I feel my heartbeat the most.

Silent, slow, and steady, beating just below the surface,

my heart, heavy, feels close enough to hold.

This day will be like the last, for better or worse

but soon, dancing shadows start to awaken my heart within.

This is when memories find me

and the one of you that never fades.

It was during young school days, in the heat of the summer, when blue-lit morning skies embraced dew-soaked grassy blades. I always loved the first few days of summer. Before sunrise, there was a stillness in the air and a thickness dense enough to hold.

I got myself ready alone in my room and set out to explore.

My outfit—my uniform, was always the same–a faded leopard print t-shirt, brown tennis shoes with one too many holes, and flower-patterned shorts. I carefully smoothed my t-shirt, laid it across the bed's comforter, and took a hot iron to straighten the wrinkles. It never seemed to work, but I had seen my dad take an iron to his wrinkled button-ups when he got ready for work as the last thing he did before he ventured out the door.

Soon curiosity took hold, and I’d often wander, roam the neighborhood and see things for the first time alone. Down by the lakeshore, I cupped my hands beneath the water catching tadpoles. Most would slip through my fingers, but the ones that wriggled in my hands, I’d hold them up close, reluctant to let go. I’d daydream, too, kicking up dust at passing cars as I walked by the side of the road, and carved my name several times over into every wooden lamppost.

These were the days of summer.

Then one day, a mound of grass by the side of the road caught my eye. This patch of grass looked like withered brown hay nestled among a bright meadow of green grass. I came in closer, turning over sticks and stones, and soon found pieces of matted dark brown fur and shriveled bones that seemed to sprout up from the ground below.

I couldn’t tell right away what lay at my feet, but I knew it once had a heartbeat like mine. I stayed close and examined all that it was until the setting sun soon found us. I cleared a space next to where it lay, dug a ditch, and lowered it into a shallow grave. This is when I felt my heartbeat, heavy, silent, and steady. I made a promise to return every day.

Days of summer rain would fall, yet no green grass would grow. I stood there each morning watching and waiting over you, over the little brown mound. Soon fur and bones flattened and disappeared against the soft soil, decaying quickly and tangled with the yellow-brown grassy blades. I didn’t know what I was looking for when I was hoping for green grass to grow upon your grave— in the quiet of the morning; I recognized I’d found a home where you lay—holding tight to a wish that grass would grow.

These days, many years later, I walk by that same brown mound and think about those days long ago. When I dared to be curious, much like you. Years of rain have washed away your fur and bones, and no one thinks twice about why green grass doesn’t grow in the meadow. Laid to rest upon a grassy mound, I’ve never been the same since that day.

Every day, I wake up in the solitude of my room with only a few memories left that carry me from one day to the next. I’ve gotten by years in the dark and dull just to feel this moment when the sun’s shadows can dance upon my skin. But I wonder why you linger in my heart, if only for a moment.

I catch myself when I dream I’d be back there again, turning sticks and stones, right when I stood over you, hoping green grass would grow. It’s a hope that we are not laid to rest, forgotten, and washed away by years of rain where nothing can ever grow.