You asked me what I wanted.

I didn’t know what you wanted to hear,

So I looked at other people’s poems.

And I realized that what I want is, essentially, the same as them

To be heard.
 

So I’ll write you a story.

I’ll paint you a picture so vivid that you can feel the laughter and the pain echo through your

body.

The sharpness of my pages, that is the longing I feel.

The colors on my canvas, they are the jokes and the friendships that made my summer

unforgettable

The ink on the pages, that is the map we patrolled.

The brush I use, it is the community, the people we protected. The people we sacrificed

everything for.

And feel, if you will, the roughness of my bindings, it is the collection of my memories that will

fade with wear, but never be completely destroyed.)
 

I miss work; the challenge, the people, the sounds, the jokes.

It was just an internship really, but I lived for it.

Every morning jumping out of bed like I had only done when I was late for school,

I’d get to the station and dispatch would buzz me in,

Waiting for Boss in the extra chair, working on the project for Chief,

Then finishing the project way ahead of schedule and seeing the shock and respect on his face.

And then Boss would come in and standing in the door way.

“Morning” he’d always say with his featured grin.

I’d reply “good morning” and could never help but beam back at him.

As I’d save my project he’d lean up against the desk next to me and chat with dispatch.

Boss can always make me laugh with his singing, ideas of today’s teenagers, and his voice

imitations.

There was never such a thing as a bad day at work, not for me.
 

Then there were night shifts. And Jeff, and Joe, and Greg.

There were jokes and stories and confidence.

For the first time confidence.

He called me ‘partner’ and ‘matron’.

He had my back and I had his.

I was a high school kid, but he treated me as an equal.

I knew next to nothing, so he taught me.

How to write tickets, use the computer, and transport prisoners.

I handled the paperwork and the keys.

He told me not to let anyone discourage me from following my dreams,

That I’d make it, that I’d be great, that I had qualities the kid in training still needed to develop.

He told me that I could do whatever I wanted to and that he’d help me if I needed it.
 

And I need it;

Something to look forward to, a challenge, the support.

 Forget the money, it didn’t and doesn’t matter to me!

But I cannot forget my memories.

It was something to be proud of.

And I want the world, my family (red and blue) to understand what it meant to me.

I want to go back and relive that summer.

I don’t want that chapter to end.

So in summers yet to come I’ll write new chapters

At different departments, but still I’ll be at home.

Dr. Seuss once said “Smile because it happened....."