Recollections of Camp

Cement block walls,
the cabin floor needing sweeping every morning,
tasteless oatmeal,
whistled signals for organized games,
reading the Bible when I didn’t understand,
songs around a fire with someone strumming a guitar badly.

I shivered in that cement I thought of as a jail.
The dusty floor looked up with frowns, felt my tears as I swept because no one else wanted to.
Why cardboard for breakfast?
I wanted my mother’s scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, orange juice, smiles, the dependable dime she left on my placemat for a phone call.
Can’t I just go out to play?
Climb my favorite apple tree?
Wade in the creek?
Race with the dogs?
I didn’t know what Resurrection was, only that I needed resurrection from this place.
I knew enough about piano. Why couldn’t that guy at least play C, G, D7, lead the singing?

Camp.
No place for a young girl who needed fresh rain on her burgeoning soul,
warmth, sunlight, hand-holding through puberty.