Trevor and the Tree House

Trevor is two feet tall
Standing on a backyard
Of dead pets
And brown grass

All the rich kids have treehouses
All the rich kids who don't live all that far from here
Have phones like computers
And computers like phones
Robot dogs that never die
And have to be buried in the backyard

Trevor finds a plank of wood behind a dumpster on Degnan Ave
And two buckets full of who-knows-what
And a sign that says 'Nobody Lives Here'

For some reason Trevor sees these things
And imagines them putting themselves together
First a wrong way, then another wrong way
Then finally connecting
In some unusual way
Into a tree house

He sees his dad putting them together
With hammers and wrenches
And things you probably don't even use
To build a tree house

He sees the two of them drinking lemonade
Tools stretched out on a blanket in front of them
Carefully choosing the right instruments
To construct this recognizable symbol of a healthy childhood

In Trevor's mind the buckets and the plank
Transform into that fresh lumber
That smells so good
It inspires you to create things

Not just tree houses or regular houses
But whole mansions
Where people you could never be would want to live

Trevor drags the buckets and the plank
And the sign back to his backyard
And he puts them in front of the old dead tree
That was gone long before his dad was

Long before his father decided
That brown grass and and dead pets
Was something his son could live over
But not him, not this man that Trevor would never know

He lays the plank of wood up against the nearly black bark
And suddenly he felt something rumbling underneath him
And for a moment he worried that the dead pets might be coming back to get him

Then roots began popping out of the ground
Branches flew out of the top of the dead tree
Which wasn't all that dead anymore
And the old dead bark fell off
And in its place was fresh new wood
That smelled like the lumber
Trevor imagined in his dream

And on those branches grew a house
And then something bigger than a house
A mansion, but not just a mansion
A mansion in a tree

With an old dog in it
And an aged baseball mitt
And a trunk full of baseball cards
And a tank with a lizard named Charles living in it

In that tree house was a childhood
Ready for the taking

And Trevor climbed up the tree
Notches appearing in the bark
To help him up there

But when he reached the door
He noticed a sign in the window
That said--'Nobody Lives Here'

And as hard as he knocked
And as hard as he wished
Nobody came to open the door

So he climbed down
And sat against the tree

And that was where his mother found him

She came over and sat down next to him
Dropping something in his lap

A baseball mitt
A new one

It wasn't something they could afford
But very few things were affordable these days
And some of those unaffordable things
Were still necessary

The baseball mitt was necessary
And so she bought it

She stood up
And helped up her son
And the two tossed a ball back and forth

It wasn't a tree house
Or a mansion
Or a tank with a lizard in it

It wasn't the symbol of a perfect childhood
But symbols are often difficult to achieve

So we do the best we can

We play catch with gloves we can't afford
With mothers trying to play fathers
While fathers are who knows where
And little boys try to be little boys
And tough grown men
At the same time

Trevor thinks one day there might be a tree house
But in the mean time
There's this

He tosses his mom the ball
And she catches it

And he feels proud of her

He feels very
Proud