The park of 'Bozky Nebozky' (Bozena the pitiful) - a name we kids gave this park that was named after a famous Czech child book author Bozena Nemcova.
How uncanny.
Dark, rusty and cold. Smelling faintly of urine.
Pieces of broken and rusted-through metal sticking out in angry, sad bits; looking like mouths with shattered teeth, like wounds that won't heal.
Parts missing. Parts stolen and sold as scrap metal.
Dismantled dreams.
That's how I remember this playground, mostly.
The intention was to be a warm, fun filled place for imagination, games and laughter. And for a while it was. Then it turned into wasteland.
The potential is almost surprising, the waste of it, heart wrenching.
Towards the end, the stairs didn't lead anywhere, the rails were missing or rusted through - instead of serving as safety measure, it's rusty broken bits threatening to cut through a little palm, the harsh surface scraping a little knee ...
The rocket, so hopefully pointing to the sky turned into a scary looming dark hole filled with smell of urine, filled with trash ...
Eerily, like my childhood, what started out as a warm, hopeful, safe place, ended up being a scary, sad and cold hole ...
That cold spot is still within me, with its rusty edges, with its shame, its broken dreams. Sometimes the cold sharp metal cuts me when I least expect it. And then there is the absurd beauty and a hint of warmth ... those things that I try to hold on to.:
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