The pounding in my chest was a unique sensation

It was slow like the flapping of a  bird’s wings as it flew lazily over a park

So my body lay flat becoming rolling hills

A playground full of children appeared on my stomach

The hairs on my legs turned to the trees teenagers disappeared into

While old couples walked around the deep blue lakes my eyes had become

 

I was important as a park

A place to make memories

Not a person you wish to remove from them

As a park people roamed around scratching their names into my trees

Making permanence for themselves for years to come

 

People crave to know that they will be remembered

They want the kids of the future to wander onto my legs

Find a name of an old relative they’d heard stories about

The teens of today need to know that someone tomorrow will make sure they don’t disappear

 

In time the kids that would visit me to play on the slide of my nose and splash in the shallows of My eyes grew

The child that once flung mud at their siblings

Had decided that hiking on the mountain of my stomach was more interesting

 

I’ve watched endless kids grow old and walk away

Not needing me anymore

They learned all they could with what I offered them

I knew that no matter how many children grew and left to another place there would be another Group to replace them

And yet every child that never returned to swing or hike or simply to just get out of the house left a dent.

 

Children had a way of getting under your skin

Stealing away a piece of you

Many took rocks or broken chains

But all stole from the beating mass beneath the playground

The more kids that left the softer the beating