A Time.

It's that alone feeling, yet this time it is subtly drenched in a vague nostalgic veil. In this place, looking down into the courtyard protected by beige buildings, I feel a longing for my childhood back. The parts of childhood where I forgot about the abuse my father inflicted upon my mother, where I forgot how broken my family really was outside of the 80 degree paradise that was the small, small town of Bradley. Most of my memories were made at that dilapidated house, renovated like new by the time I was ten years of age. The dirt hill that eventually formed its way into a garage, or the farm with Freckles the pig, those two peacocks, or that damned rooster that almost killed my cousin. Looking down into the courtyard I can feel those shadows of isolation hovering over the green palms, the cement cooling fast as the sun says goodbye to the day. I remember riding my green bike (naturally, it would be green, wouldn't it?) along the train tracks as Jordan and I feverishly searched in vain for the flattened pennies we set on the steel - or, are train tracks even made of steel? It all didn't matter, as long as I found more of them than he did.

The cool breeze outside my window reminds me greatly of the cool breeze as the hot weather would wane; interestingly enough, living here is a lot like living there. Cold mornings, yet dangerously hot days, followed by cold, cold nights. City life differs greatly from country life, yet in a full-circle sort of way it all comes together. What one side lacks, the other prospers, and so in essence and theory, they are both the same. Here the days are long, but that's greatly due to the fact that it's still technically summertime. But there, in that small town I'd call my childhood, days were everlasting. And, even though the nights would arrive after hours of pool-time, or lizard catching in the grape vines, we'd still have our fun. Listening to "oldies but goldies" with my grandparents and cousin, watching old black-and-white shows from the (g)olden days. Shows like Zorro, as well as the Mickey Mouse Club, I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver; and, to switch it up from black to color, Bewitched, The Brady Bunch, and Happy Days. Family time was always at the start of dinner, all the way until we had showered one-by-one taking our turns, until we stayed up late watching these shows, talking about our little lives, our big futures.

Thinking about it now, and even long ago, I feel that some parts of me were supposed to be for another generation. Some parts were just meant to stay.

And as the breeze travels from one green palm to another, up scaling the walls and ultimately getting hindered of its plight, that loneliness creeps back up my spine. Writers are true introverts, and thank God for them. Thank God for the expression of words, because body language can only do so much when you're one like me, who would rather be put in a crowd than front stage. Yet, what you want is always reversed from what you get, and so your expectations - both yours and the ones placed on you - change. Looking back continuously into that courtyard, with its checkered walkway, makes me want to curl up and hide to a time where there really were no worries except for if you really wanted to wear socks or not with your shoes. Thank God.

Back there we really never had the chance to see the sun set, only because we were surrounded by dry hills as large as mountains for one so small. Comfort was leisure, and leisure was the ability to walk around in the middle of the road without fear of a car because none passed through. You couldn't call it a ghost town because people lived there, but the area itself was a ghost, quiet and alone. Bittersweet.

Bradley was where I had my freedom, because when I was home I was locked up in an empty house; without a father, with a working mother and grandmother, I'd learned from an early age that it was menial, useless, to be afraid of the dark, and that even though your imagination is one of your most powerful means of self-expression, of self-preservation, you could tone it down, make it sleep - have it comfort you when no one else was there to hold you.

I could never say it was horrible, but only "different". Every child grows up differently. Different.

I feel so much indifference for the word "different" that I feel it has no meaning. My childhood was me, it was a golden time until I became smart and started noticing the people around me. Time takes it's toll, and I could see it in the sunken eyes of my family.

The courtyard in front of my dorm room only reminds me of my childhood when the sun starts to set, and when the overbearing shadows of the sun's guilt is revealed to the earth because he feels that he's abandoning the one true thing that is dependent of him. But when the moon rises, when she undermines the small lights of the stars, is when I feel old again. And I stay old until the sun returns with showers of warmth, hugging the earth, only to leave once more before the moon greets him. I like when the sun sets, it makes me freeze in motion, until I shiver at the cold night and wonder why I am sitting here, alone.