The Boot Print

The kid built it for an hour, maybe more.

The towers were careful. The moat was deliberate.

The walls had the kind of detail you only

get when you're young enough to believe

that time spent on something is time well spent,

that the thing will matter, that it will last.

And then the kid went to get water.

And then someone else walked through it.

Just walked through it like it wasn't there,

like the space was empty, like the sand

had never been anything but sand.

The boot print went right through the middle,

flattened the towers, erased the moat,

turned the careful architecture into a trench.

And when the kid came back, they stopped.

They just stopped and looked at what was

not there anymore. They didn't cry.

They didn't yell. They just stood there

with the water bucket in their hand

and understood something about the world

that they're going to have to carry with them.

I watched it happen. I saw the destruction

happening and I didn't stop it. I didn't

warn them. I just watched the boot go through

and then I watched the kid's face and I knew

I should have done something, should have

stood in front of it, should have made

my body into a wall. But I didn't.

And now the castle is gone and the kid

is still standing there and I am still

standing here and we are all of us

complicit in the way things fall apart.