ABOUT THE POEM: Chapter 13, The Bench That Outlived Me, explores the quiet devastation of witnessing life move forward while remaining stagnant, trapped by circumstances and emotional scars. The narrator revisits the bench where formative friendships and first loves were shared, observing that those who once laughed alongside him have grown, achieved, and left him behind. Memories mingle with reflections on love, loss, and social judgment, highlighting how emotion is often shamed, and logic becomes a refuge when vulnerability is undervalued. The dinosaur, a recurring symbol in the Ronie Dinosaur series, represents a silent, timeless companion that mirrors the narrator’s inner resilience. Its presence underscores the theme of patience, endurance, and the slow, often painful process of rebuilding oneself after emotional displacement. Through layered imagery—photographs, benches, streets, and social media reminders—the chapter conveys the tension between witnessing life and fully participating in it. Philosophical undertones permeate the narrative, examining how time, absence, and personal choice shape identity. Ultimately, the chapter meditates on grief, self-reclamation, and the quiet strength it takes to walk again, even when parts of oneself remain missing.Ronie Dinosaur Chapter 13 – The Bench That Outlived Me
I had to live life and know it at once.
The shepherd-god had centuries of silence for both.
I had none.
Time slid through my fingers
like water, sand, coins, people, years:
quiet, absolute,
leaving only a wet stain on the palm
and the question
how two small hands can lose an entire universe.
I still sit on the same cracked bench,
schoolyard and college both,
where I once shared laughter, dreams,
the heat of shoulders touching.
They stood up, walked on,
grew soft dimples of satisfaction,
the kind that appear when life kneads you exactly right.
They became full loaves.
I became the ghost in their old photographs.
When they open the album
they might pause, smile,
spot the boy beside them
and wonder, “Whatever happened to him?”
When I open the same album
I search every frame
and never find myself.
Only them,
laughing, younger,
already leaving.
Like the girl I loved so fiercely
I could only watch her walk away
on the last day of school,
on the same street that once brought her to me.
Like the college friend
who shared this very bench on day one
and vanished from every corridor after.
They lived what I could only witness.
They surpassed what I could only imagine.
The world moved on
and politely forgot to take me with it.
You looked like an actress from the nineties.
She posts her pictures proudly on social media.
I look at them and think of you-
and all the love you received that was never mine.
The boy had a heart; still does.
But the world priced emotion as weakness,
shamed it into silence.
So he walked toward logic instead,
and logic shaped him into a philosopher
the way winter shapes a tree:
by taking everything first.
Now I am sore,
flesh burning flesh,
heart feeding on feelings for blood-red,
mind swallowing logic whole
just to stay alive.
Life remained a woman
who calls herself to come,
but when I go,
it humiliates and
throws me out.
I grieve.
I stop.
I walk again.
The dinosaur sits beside me,
heavy, warm, ancient.
He does not roar.
He simply waits
until the silence teaches the boy
how to stand up
with the missing pieces still missing.
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