The Meadow 121 The Room I Grew Up In Benjamin M. Vandevert Lying on the blue and white plaid couch my mom got for free, from the neighbor waiting to leave for Mars, I look at the bed my grandfather and uncle slept in that I now sleep in. The carpet’s gone, splintered plywood holds up furniture that was here before me and some that we picked up on the roadside. I remember when the dresser holding my clothes was filled with comic books sealed in plastic sleeves and thirty-year-old candy left by my uncle when he left for UCSD. The constant rattle of the swamp cooler draws my attention away from things that are gone to things that have never left. Sunlight glints off worn strings on the guitar I wrote my first song on. Laughter rises from the backyard through the open window behind me. My brothers scare away the fledgling robins as they run across the grass swinging driftwood clubs I collected before I worried about whether my SAT scores were good enough. A traveler in a book I read more than once wondered if he would ever look down into that valley again.
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