Long Way Down — When We Were Kids

WHEN WE WERE KIDS

I would follow Shawn

around the apartment

making the strangest noise with my mouth.

Hard to explain the sound.

Burpy but not a burp.

Like burp mixed

with yawn mixed with hum.

Something like that.

For twenty minutes straight.

From bedroom

to kitchen

to living room back to bedroom.

To punish me,

he would wait for me to finish,

to run out of steam,

to let it go, to get tired

of being immature.

And then,

to my surprise,

he wouldn’t say a word to me for the rest

of the day.