Smells like summer love.

A childhood that seems so distant,I could have dreamed it all up,all the while.
So different were those summers,spent on rusty cots that creaked under the weight of innocence and ignorance.
Of swimming down streams,tickled by shoals of tiny fish,fear trickled by,feet planted firm underwater.
Old nails that stuck out of wooden beds,scraping knees clean of flesh,just one tetanus shot away from pain.

Is it the same? Is it even of any resemblance,the same life? So turned over by time,turncoat nature of thoughts.
I,who is love with boxes of preserved memories-believes that the past before the keepsakes was but a dream?
I still can barely hold up a conversation.And love is till the sight of a swimming pool.
But the little things,the longings of childish intricacy,the language that befuddles the older-
do they just die inside our walls,vanish,disappear into the acceptance of reality?

I press flowers into pages between books,like slices of forgotten dreams pressed into semi-sleep.
And the same sad song plays back at me,when I look into the sometimes green,sometimes amber eyes of my big,gentle dog.
Blowing candles out for someone else,like on a birthday cake,but wishing for something beyond possibility,a wish too late.
Invest in the bizzare.Invite the quiet inside me.The only answer there can be before the strength to grow up prevails. Being understood  is as hard as it is to understand.
And I'll be waiting again,counting drops of summer rain till the end.