The Browning of Banana

The banana sat still, coolly, on the high school lawn, this great unused lawn running on for hundreds of yards, unmarked, without goals or sports like design, only lain out for the kids who want to walk away for as long as possible, who want to turn their back forever, until they reach the broken opening of the chain link fence that runs the perimeter of the field, where there they can stoop and disappear into the foliage hiding the houses from being seen, or the foliage that helps keep their cries muted and muffled. People that live on the perimeter of a high school are old, and don’t exist and the foliage helps with that, while the old people think differently. It’s often quiet out there on the sun drenched grass, warming, perspiring in the heat, and the hot blanket mutes the farther off sounds of sports and chatter, school bells and the laughter of children - and these are children - little, wonderful “to be”s acting as sexy and important as their little bodies can allow, or as quiet and unnoticed, but its cold right now on the lawn, in that field, and it’s not quite quiet, because the silent morning is its own sound. And the banana sits browning in the chilly air, left there by some angry kid, who wanted to eat it very badly, but he was afraid of dying and didn’t know it, and so he dropped his fruit carelessly while being buried too deep in a world he thought was falling apart. And he was right, because everything he believed would be as true and as real as the browning banana. It’s only afterwards, with our runny noses and a rotten banana, completely browned, mushy and moldy, a tarry midnight moon, a sliver in the dark green sky, it’s only then that we can pause and sit down in it all, cross our legs next to such a thing… or I don’t know… All I care about is writing this down because I’m in love with it. I’m sitting cross-legged in the field behind my high school and I get to watch it all turn brown.