There are swans out on this lake too and I know they are swans because I say to my mom WHAT ARE THOSE ONES, THE WHITE? and she says back THOSE ARE SWANS. PRETTY HUH? and I shake my head like a yes.
The prettiest girl in my grade her name is Susan and she says that we can’t be best friends. We play four-square and I hang upside down from the monkey bars. IF YOU FALL FROM THERE YOU’RE GOING TO CRACK YOUR HEAD she tells me, Susan, and I like it best when she is watching. I WON’T I tell her and she just shakes her head like I just shook my head at my mom here watching what she has just told me are swans.
If Susan had white feathers like these swans she could launch into the sky, holding me in her claws, taking me all over the place. The swans floating on this lake, spots of white in the middle of mud colored water, dirtiness.
WE CAN’T BE BEST FRIENDS IF YOUR HEAD IS BROKEN OPEN she says to me, her blonde hair all cut short and looking cute. And I say I WON’T and give her my best upside-down hanging smile, thinking of my dad when he finally charms my mom into laughing.
And these swans here in this lake, they are like Susan, the opposite of dirty, just surrounded by the mud. And maybe that is how I am. Maybe at heart I am clean and pure, like my mom sometimes calls me, SNOW WHITE YOU she says. But there is just too much mud around, too many chances to get dirty. The swans don’t blend into this lake, they stick out, and I am the same way sometimes.
Bio: J. A. Tyler is the author of the novel(la)s INCONCEIVABLE WILSON (scrambler books, 2009), SOMEONE, Somewhere (ghost road press, 2009) & IN LOVE WITH A GHOST (willows wept press, 2010) & has had recent work with Sleepingfish, Caketrain, Hotel St. George, elimae, & Action, Yes. He is also founding editor of mud luscious / ml press. For more details, visit: www.aboutjatyler.com.
Under my bed I have some pictures that a kid at school he gave me one time and I have pinned them up underneath my bed where no one but me looks, because my mom and my dad I don’t think they fit under there anymore. They reach to get my dirty clothes or my shoes from out of under there sometimes but mostly now they make me do it, wash my own dirty clothes, because I am another year older and it is my time my mom says, or NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT she says, because I guess that means I am old enough now. The pictures they are safe I think, pinned up to the ceiling of my bed, no one going under there except for me and that is just to look at the underwear on all these women, barely covering up their parts, me imagining all the skin.
LIKE AN EGG she says as I swing, my knees hinged, WIDE OPEN. And I just smile and smile, because I have her attention and I like it when her eyes are on me. I love it when she is looking, and the way her hair is like my mom’s hair. I wink and it comes out a blink so she doesn’t even notice, but she is still smiling, a swan on our playground, and that is good enough.