Sandcastles

When we were kids,
The innocence of experience,
Was pure and simple.
We’d ‘listen’ to those teachers,
But really our daydreams
Would be unfolding in front of us.

I still laugh when I remember
Those after school walks home,
You were always a joker,
And I was that quiet kid,
Without you I’d be a no one,
So thank you for that.

Were we best friends?
I’d like to think of us as brothers,
Sliding through time,
Swinging our way through life,
All a joke and not a care.

The crafts of our combination were evident,
Sandcastles soon to be knocked down,
Dens that would be invaded by rats,
Plants crushed underfoot,
But we had to enjoy the moment, and not the future.

That moment ended at eleven,
When our day dreams became the dreams of our futures,
And our dens became the figments of our imaginations.

We could always grow in our own ways,
And we did, as you became the quiet one,
Hardworking, and I became the rowdy one,
To make up for my lost school days.
Slowly our connection would wane,
The only thing holding us together the glue of memory,
And the hanging certainty,
That as adults we may craft something once again.

Eventually our hard work paid off,
We both did university, I did English,
And you did Drama, resisting the boring menial
Subjects that were the crux of education.
You had been there, you were too much of a joker for that.
I was pleased for your pending acting career,
As I pursued the route of journalism,
A writer at heart, once and always.

Even better when you met that girl.
I met her at that dinner, Charlotte was her name,
She was beautiful, kind, intelligent,
You’re a lucky man I told you,
That same evening on the balcony.
Then you looked at me and you told me:
‘Remember when we used to build sand castles?
Well we never stopped, now we’re building
Our own castles, not out of sand,
But out of something much more solid’.

I thought this a clever metaphor,
And I knew what you meant,
We had never stopped sliding through life,
I thought we’d do so right to the end.

I didn’t see you much for years after this,
But what you said ran through my mind,
It helped me to strive,
And I got my first reporter job at 25.

Why I never called you before, I didn’t know,
And I should have,
But at this point I felt I had to tell you
That I’d built my castle, and how was yours?

So I did, and you were happy for me,
But you told me you’d broken up with Charlotte,
You’d spent 5 years together, I could hear your disappointment,
Your resentment, as she’d cheated on you.
You were holding a 9 to 5 job at a market,
I said that’s okay, you were earning,
Still only 25 yourself, but I could hear in your voice
That the slide had stopped short,
The swings were standing still,
And the sand was crumbling beneath your feet.

We kept speaking,
But I saw you slowly shift into something else,
Not anybody that I knew,
Not anybody that I would want to know,
Your resentment got the better of you,
And you threw it all away,
What you had, but what could I do?

Two more years passed,
And that took me to this very day,
I’d called you regularly,
But I knew things weren’t working out,
And I certainly wasn’t ready,
For that phone call today.
Not from you, from your mother,
My ringtone like alarm bells in my mind,
What she said is a blur,
I can only remember putting the phone down,
Then standing in silence
For what seemed an eternity,
Objects standing still around me,
But the floor moving beneath me.

I’ve sat in this spot now for hours,
I knew I had to put my skill to good use,
To tell our story, in poetic form,
But the letters are blotchy from my tears.

I close my eyes for a moment,
And remember back when we were kids,
The innocence of experience,
Was pure and simple.

Building sandcastles in the Sun,
Then knocking them down just for fun.

And you never got to build your castle,
And I’m so sorry for that.
So I wish for one day only,
We could just go back to building castles in the sand.



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