A train horn blew in the distance with that familiar sound. The cloudless blue sky vibrated with the sound of distant engines, echoing a forgotten childhood. A girl stands in front of an open window, a quiet breeze blowing through youthful brown hair as she looks up at the same blue sky, watching airplanes fly by. Long summer days gave way to empty gray ones like today. The fields roll out with endless colors from seasonal changes; flowers bloom beneath the same sunshine we both share today.
The golden rectangle clock strikes another hour, another memory fading in the background. Cold, early mornings turned into endless warm evenings. Dusty visions of grass-stained knees and bloody adolescents that left the scars I carry today, that same clock ticking through years of bliss–now that forgotten golden hour displays its final time.
The air turns crisp–the sudden breeze pulling ocean tides with it. Sand between the toes of soothing days along the coast. Trying to escape the suffocating minds of small towns and the backroads that never led far enough from home.
The sound of those same engines carried me away, only to leave me surrounded by trees and recurring faces. Cobblestone streets and humid sweat, bridges filled with genuine laughter, silenced in the presence of grieving white granite rock.
It was there, in that downtown bookstore, that I left my imagination behind. That dim red light was shining through that small bedroom window as I joined the clouds again in an attempt to return to something familiar. The ghosts of those dark woods still linger in the background of today.
Fields rolling out again, drought-killed and blackened by the flames of former years. The backroads became a place of acceptance and comfort, tire tracks winding through years of mental freedom and scorching sun-filled days until it didn’t shine for me anymore. Returning to the roots of my beginning, I found solace in a dying heart, its beating at the very core of my existence. I walked up the stairs of painful words, moments spoken in lost conversations.
A black dog walks quietly into my home, taking up residence in his usual spot, slowly making the space his own.
Distracted by bright city lights competing with those traveling to other destinations, concrete walls trapped the rabid animal, and he surrendered to a silent existence. Suffocating beneath the surface, the smog-covered skyline blurred the soaring jets as they moved on to better things.
Temporary homecomings marred by past visions of palm trees and harmful shaking ground, a new setting begins to unfold. Amid changing desires and heartache that didn’t belong to me, I stood on the tarmac of that forgotten city and inhaled fresh beginnings that unexpectedly ended too soon.
The horn blares in the distance; the ground of the railway station vibrates beneath my feet. Uncertainty remains in the tracks of tomorrow, and the doors continue to open for whatever unknown stop lies ahead.