Forgive Me For Killing You with Reveries

Artwork: Daphne Buter 

You and I, we only had one friend. It’s been more than 35 years since I last walked you to school. I remember we passed a chestnut tree with elongated branches, and how the leaves tickled our heads, and how we laughed. I can hear you laughing, still. I don’t know why we laughed so much that day.

I remember your azure dress, and the azure ribbons in your blonde pigtails; these pearly chains of yours.

The sun was beating down on us.

I can see us walking there, under the branches of that tree, captured in a never-ending moment. Captured in that merciless haunting summer.

We will always walk there.

We will never walk there.

And now you are in my memory every day since then. You blonde little ghost. At night your face rises from mine in the dark, like a radiant accusing mask.

When the bell of the school rang I wasn’t allowed to leave. I had to finish my work. I wasn’t allowed to walk you home. Forgive me for killing you with reveries.
I can see you leaving the classroom. You turned around in the frame of the door, and smiled at me, forlornly. I know you was scared for the other kids.

What was I daydreaming about when that truck drove over you; when your bones snapped; When your pigtails broke?

When I had left the school I saw woodchips on the bridge close to my house. Woodchips soaked in blood, and the eye of God was smoldering in the skies.