Archive of Our Own ^beta

the town had grown so much over the years. they built a new elementary school to deal with the flood of people that had started flocking into our small, “cultured” town.  i still remember how much it hurt and scared us to grow up and go off to college.  we went together.  we wanted to get as far away from that shithole as possible.  we drove all the way to columbus. we wanted nothing to do with that place.  once we graduated, however, we ended up back there. stan’s parents had moved to brighton, a town about 30 minutes from denver.  we were visiting my family.  mom was making a huge fuss about how we never called and never visited.  we could no longer use the excuse that we were busy with school..  i guess we were just tired of thinking about south park and wanted to stay away from it.  some of that is due to old “friends” that we fucking hated.  that and the fact that stan had bad memories from there that he didn’t need to remember.  i wasn’t about to force him to come back to a place that made him unhappy.  he said he wanted to go back, that he needed to go back.  something about memories that he needed to get back.

eventually, when people realized the town was shit, they moved out.

this left a lot of abandoned buildings

one of those happened to be south park elementary

we broke into dreamland

we broke into the now abandoned south park elementary and sat on the swings

just so we could have one more day there

we sat there and reminisced. i kept asking why he brought a shovel, he changed the subject.

but i could not stand to see it in such sad disrepair

it fucking hurt. to see something we used to know just die out. the playground was left in a state of disarray and disrepair.

he wanted to hold me in the roller coaster carts

he walked me over to the merry-go-round and we giggled and held hands

sunken into the ground

it squeaked and shuddered as we spun

all i could think about

i complained to him how much it hurt seeing all of this so broken

was how much i wanted to

and how i had an itching urge to put it out of its misery

burn it all down

he tried to tell me things get abandoned

he reasons that it should be left the way it is

it’s okay for them to rot

i wince and start to become agitated

i told him that we should find some gasoline

“come on it’s worth a shot”

he said we’d better not

we broke into dreamland

we ran around and reminisced of what once used to be.

to find the parts of us that we left behind

he used the shovel and dug in a rather particular spot. he dug up and small metal box. he opened it up and inside was a slue of things. pictures, drawings, poems, rocks, and two little rings

i recognize the rings as ones we wore together, our “best friend rings” we called them, i laugh at this memory. He places one on my ring finger, I place the other on him.  He looks up at me and smiles “i can’t believe this is something we did,” he looks back to the ring “i guess this is what should’ve been”

i look to the drawings and poems, he looks to the pictures. poems and drawings of nature and a forbidden crush on a boy who was too dense to see

soon enough i realize, that boy was me

he shows me pictures of nights I can’t seem to recall. running around naked. little boys on top of the world.

i show him the poems, he turns beet red. “oh haha it was a dumb crush I had on someone long ago, he never figured it out” he laughs and tries to shrug it off “it was me, wasn’t it?”

“..yea it was..”

but i could not stand the smell of death

I complain about how much this place makes my heart hurt

when everything was still alive

and how much it hurt when we were kids

if only i could pull out the clown’s teeth

if only i wasn’t so dumb as a kid, and kept little mementos like stan did

take them home to keep with me

put them under my bed, for whenever i needed to reminisce

euthanize the carousel ponies

“i really want to burn this place to the ground, kids will just disrespect it, never realize people lived their lives in this building once,”

put the park out of its misery

“leave it,  it’s a reminder,  of what once was,    and what could’ve been,”

he tried to tell me things get abandoned

“but no one cares about it, it’s going to be vandalized and kids will sell drugs in here. it’s a safety hazard, you bastard, let me burn it down”

it’s okay for them to rot

he puts a hand on my shoulder, tucks the box under his arms “some things are best left alone, in the dark”

i told him that we should find some gasoline

“please”

he said we’d better not

his arm snakes around my waist, trying to keep me moving forward, back towards home

“i love you,”

“i’m glad you finally figured it out.  took you damn long enough” he said with a huff

Our faces were warm, he squeezed my hand

“i love you too”

“you’d better say that more often”

“i know”