Presently, Mediocre Sailor

I was a very young man before.

Now I remain a young man, younger than my years at least, in my face, or so I'm told.

But some things have changed me I suppose.

Being supplanted from one location to another, chasing loves on a whim and landing in a new town with nothing to sell but my boots.

I had dreams before, of flying and falling.

Now I don't really remember the things that pass my eyes when they are closed. I could have sworn I knew love, but I guess I forgot it.

There was a tree my father planted in the yard when I was still a very young man.

He told me to race it.

We grew up and I won for a few years but slowly the tree came to dwarf me.

I spent summers with my love beneath it's shady branches, sipping cool lemonade. I always hated tea. I asked him kindly if I could mark him, and he said alright. I carved the name of my love into my brother's side. He didn't wince.

As I came home from afar one spring time, I was in a careless stupor, and I jumped into him and screamed at the good lord above as to why life had to be like this.

He hugged my legs and kept me from God's good gravity.

Things change though. He never left home.

When I grew too old for longing, I found my father's old handaxe, and I furiously beat my brother oak. I demanded over and over he bring my father back. I screamed and he sat and he watched and he bled not a drop. I tasted salt in my mouth from exhaustion before it was done.

I live in a house now, my brother surrounds me, and I am less alone than I was when I couldn't see where I was going in the city.

I apologized to him, and I knew I was wrong.

He said, "It doesn't matter much to me, I still feel the same."

When my love returns in the springtime, maybe we will sit beneath his great arms again and sip some cool lemonade.

She loves tea but I love her too much to care about that.