Cattails

There was a time when, pulling over at the side of a country road and popping cattails with my brother was the one thing I looked forward most of all. My dad would pluck them out of the bog and me and my little brother would stand in the dirt and hit the cattails on the ground so hard they would pop in an explosion of white fluff. And as we popped more and more I remember thinking that it was like my brother and I had pulled the clouds from the sky, but then I would look up and see the clouds growing thicker and it would be time to leave. 

We piled into the car after fighting for the front seat, and I would watch the fallen clouds be swept up by the wind as we drove off. I wished that I were that light and I could fly away with one gust of wind provided by a passing car. Sometimes I felt as if I would.

Maybe then I wouldn't have felt so heavy.

But I'm  not that seeds from the cattails that my brother and I popped on the side of the road. I can't fly into the air on the tails of wind left behind by the cars. I am a broken stalk that we threw back into the bog. I am heavy and brought down by mud and garbage. 

I will never float or fly away.

I will always be stuck.