We Must Have Been Very Entertaining

Driving past my childhood home,
everything seemed smaller.
The ‘big hill’
was not much more
than a slope,
the houses, miniatures
built with legos,
lawns of dry, brown grass.
I wondered if the people
who bought the Wilson’s
house knew of the murder
inside. The bullet
caught my best friend’s mom
as she was almost
out the door.

Our house was the same,
air conditioner hanging
out the exact window
in which my mom put it,
so cold indoors some days
we joked that you
could hang sides
of meat. Some days
I would step outside
just to thaw
for a while.
There was the porch
where I rollerskated
to songs on the radio,
the window my mom smashed
with her bare hand
in a rage, and the front yard
that seemed so large
when I was little.

Looking at it I understood
how the neighbors heard
all the screaming.

We were right there
the whole time,
hanging it all out
for the world to see,
reality television
before reality television.