NuevaJess's blog: "NuevaJess Poems"

PLACE ME ON LINDEN

This home was my 3^rd luck charm on a street that was the Oreo cream center

Sandwiched between the bookended cookies of Red Bank’s epicenter, Downtown

And what suburbanites worshipfully called the quintessence of residential existence

The paradox of this stretch of road only makes sense to its inhabitants

Tantamount to the Golden Gate Bridge between the tidy world of pristine lawns, unruffled pavements, and freshly poured sidewalks flanking the picketed clichéd domiciles

And the equivalent of the “wrong” side of the tracks

As scenes from “The Outsiders” flash across my mind’s silver screen

Is it any wonder this is the first and only home I ever called sweet?

Sweet as the 16^th birthday I celebrated on this expanse of connect-the-dots potholes with nature made speed bumps

It is here the trees murmur hide and seek histories while their roots crawl past their boundaries

To mingle with the everlasting crevassed sidewalk that cannot contain the anthill heaps with their forest of weeds

You see, I only made it here by a vicious twist of fate

The result of roofers roasting more than marshmallows on my childhood home, and with a roll of the insurance dice I landed exactly where I needed to be and exactly where I was

Neither here nor there

But in between, in the thick of transition, with the agility to see all sides at once

Cohabiting in surreal harmony just as the two sides of this road co-exist by clashing

Past against future

Home-spun against modern

Every day after school an army of teenage contradictions casually paraded on by to the ultimate destination, our haven of parental escape, but first

On the left is the feel of the worn-in, lived-in, come hang on the porch and stay awhile vibe, where the front yard spills leftover decorations from the latest holiday

With driveways leading toward humble backyards gleefully littered with toys, big wheels, and swing sets

But to the right, you are now on my side

Brimming with the future of cookie cutter townhouses that beg you to recall arithmetic

Lest you forget which one is yours, but, no, not me

I’m the last one on the right, the one with the last beacon of a lamplight before reaching the parking lot only sk8rs ruled

Surfing the waves of my dark brick patio of a lawn

Its smoothness a perfect contrast to the sissy-proof loose rock infested landscape otherwise known as my backyard

So while the pretenders, who are just visitors, saw scrimmages of shit-brown brick vs. dilapidated dingy gray

Their condemning eyes landing on a psychotic blend of suburban chic thrown with a weak-ass attempt at old town charm

I saw through eyes without guile

My very own threshold of abundant metaphors for life’s transitions

Light to dark

Sunrise to sunset

Young to old

High school to college

Young girl to woman

Ignorance to enlightenment

And, of course, life to death

With the delectable center containing the concoction of all of life’s journeys

So for the rest of my days, I will vividly recall how kids from every walk of life

Walked down my street and stopped to pre-hang on their way to The Slice

Bringing a big ol’ smile to my face, because I learned to really live on Linden Place