An Ode to a Tetherball Pole

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The sharp pain
of the chain against the
coolness of your pole
keeps me up

Your chain is weightless,
no longer tied to the
tetherball that

pulls it down during
the hours that the kids play,
screaming and shouting

to see who will win.

The real fun
begins in the night,
I listen for the soothe
ache and calmness
that this one song brings me

The wind reminding me,
of the freedom that I have.
Telling me that I am not

the one who is chained

You are constant,
like the man who can never

find his peace,
praying in his church every night

Understand that when I hear you
I can feel myself with you,
to picture my figure sitting on
the hard blacktop,
watching your chain become restless

I then picture myself on my roof,
easily watching the stars and contemplating
whether or not you'd understand

my thoughts of galaxies if I told you.

You've watched the stars,
same as I.
But I know the freedom of them,
while you may only dream of it

How careful I must be,
to watch and listen to you

To understand that your chain,
is like a child forced to endure
a punishment that he does not deserve.

I listen and wait in my room
the window slid open

Just a little,
enough to hear you over the
movements in my home.

I catch myself wondering
some days

If someday in the future
when I am gone and grown,
that when I return to visit
you'll despise me

That my love and admiration
for you was not enough
to keep at bay
the hatred
that brewed out of having to stay.

The scars of your world of
laughter and innocence
opened to infections of jealousy

I would wonder if my love
opened your first wound,
knowing without an answer that it was

My love for you
showing you my possibilities
without giving you any

like a starved man
chained and forced to watch
those already full continuing to eat more.

For now I will continue
to swim in obliviousness

in my love for you,

ignoring your grunts of pain
and instead dreaming while
listening to the sounds you are forced to create,
in the silence of all things around you that are free.

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