You were too big. A mahogany

dipped circle that would slide off

my little fingers, making me giggle each time

you met the dusty bark.

I never thanked you for validating

my labors under the dry heat of the sun,

but here I sit, grateful.

In the drinking fountain,

I accidentally drench you in mud,

suffocating the warm mahogany I had come to love

in the brief thirty minute recess we were allowed.

Not even the dirty stew made in the “off limits” drinking fountain

could have cured the imagination

that crawled over my bones that day.

It never occurred to me that dust and water

only make mud.

You once belonged to a princess who

scoured the desert in search of treasure,

who scraped her knees for the love of the hunt,

and always ran back to her excavation corner

with the same fervor.

As you sit and collect dust in a desk drawer I never open,

I can’t help but wonder which one of us

misses the playground more.

Rachel Snyder

Biography: I’m a fourth year Psychology major, minoring in Writing. I love to write all manner of things, but poetry speaks to me the most. My work tends to draw inspiration from the feelings I have experienced, things I’ve witnessed, and universal questions I ask most frequently.

Artist Statement: My childhood enthusiasm and imagination were essential to my roots, but it feels all too far away now.