My Secret Place

I’m gonna take you to my special place.
It’s a place that you, like no one else I know might appreciate.
I don’t go there with anyone but you’re a special case for my special place.

Joni spoke to me one night. I was waiting on the whim of the cool and slick when I was feeling the fool and sick. But I just had to get out and speak the words of magic and we would giggle and scream and eat cheese and mustard. And we had fish and shared a car and bills were little monsters that we kicked to the curb with a crack and a crunch. Ice was for sliding on, whether in your van or your sneakers. Axes were hard to come by, but chef’s knives were not. We played in dungeons and on starships with frisbees of blood and plus-five swords of bill collector slaying. The Renaissance was on the other side of the lake and Little John had KY in his tent. Saint Anthony had no head and Jesus was dead ’til we stuck him in the little ceramic cradle right before the parties began. California was easy when you got the wheel in your hand. You just whistle when you get home so ya know it’s not a ghost – or a cat under the tub. Pack the Christmas tree with wrapped soul tickles regardless of who owes who. It matters not. Fuck my twat. Course and abrasive and nasty and funny and irreverent and unholy and sweet and loving and true and honest and never, never, never, NEVER is your pain worse than mine. Hear me?! HEAR ME?!?

He does. And he knows just how much space he takes up in my heart. He knows that nothing will ever change. A little distance. A little space. A little this and that and grey hair and bigger bellies and time and people and hay rides that just aren’t the same anymore. I will still be standing on that rock hammer jacking a hole big enough for a sword or a show or the only Merlin or maybe – just maybe…these memories. Oh there are so many more. But you know what I mean. Whistle. Whistle. Whistle.

That’s not Barnabas.

I miss you, boy.