Keepsake

When I was a boy, that boy was chubby and I imagine him waddling around in my mind. I recall him penguining down the grassy hill in some forgotten pair of shoes, holding outside of his throat one note that penguined down after him. I want to recall the way he ran around the park, signalling with horse morse before turning left or right. I have an uncertainly brazen fondness for this boy I used to use the first person pronoun for, even though he now but animates in memories, in photographs and even a video or two. The world was clean for him, crackless, or if there were cracks, they had been rubbed in by walnuts. He holds inspiration for me, in a more literal sense, because I've said many times he lives inside of me. Since puberty, my body has grown around him like a protective forest. I know now that he doesn't feel trapped or lost or lonely as I once probably thought, nor does he complain, because on a level beyond words, beyond his age yet precisely of it, he has understood that I had to grow up and my innocence had to be shattered so that I could fit into the world's decoupage. Now I figure he has understood the next part as well, that his remaining in there even after the hardening of the body around him means my innocence is yet intact. And when I have moments when I think about him, when I member again, I can hear his waddling sound, cheerful, smiling a smile that doesn't fit between his cheeks and so has to leak over in between mine.

I hope he'll run around joyfully until he no longer needs to remind me of how I used to be and still am.