Summer this year is better than last,
still a little underwhelming.
It’s not like my family’s stories,
or the “coming of age” movies.
Those are all cool, full of crazy stuff,
nothing like our summer,
just bumming around.
The coolest thing we’ve done is see a train.
School’s starting soon.
I gotta have some type of cool story by then.
Maybe I’ll make something up.
Nah, I don’t wanna lie.
Y’know, first impressions and all.
Maybe I’ll just exaggerate the train thing.
I mean, we saw it up pretty close.
I’ll just say we stood near the tracks.
We visit ‘em often,
leaving coins to be squished,
but never finding them after.
Maybe they fling away,
or maybe something takes them.
It’s probably the first option.
Still, we get desperate,
searching through rocks,
wandering further down the track.
You’d think they’d stand out,
bronze and shining,
but they never do.
Every time we go back, we place another,
hoping it will stay put.
It never does.
We just waste more change.
There’s an old bike near the tracks,
broken and rusted.
Not even the grips are good.
The seat and back wheel are gone.
Maybe those parts were once useful,
and the rest left behind,
just scraps of something once valuable.
Like the train itself,
once big and mighty,
blowing its horn every morning,
now small, rarely used.
That’s why it was cool to see it.
It hardly comes ‘round anymore,
every summer less and less.
It’s not like the movies.
Not like the stories.
It’s different now,
less cool, less exciting.
It’s just like this summer.
Author’s Note:
I wrote a series of poems last year about my summer and so I wanted to visit back on that then compare them. I was also inspired by aging and how the world changes and passes by with each year. I wanted to use a object that would also be able to symbolize myself or the readers in some kind of way but only after the poem is analyzed and looked at at a deeper level to help convey that message of change.
Raymond K. Stash | 14 | Indianapolis, IN
