Hard-boiled wonderland
Occasionally, the sky becomes overcast and I lose sight of shadows amongst the dark corners, pushed deep into the edges of walls, hidden under the eaves.
When the words fell from his mouth, I realised how far I have travelled without knowing it. How it is, that when the world turns and days pass, we become gradually hardened, because being alive demands that we keep on living. That as we grow older we make ourselves out to be less vulnerable, because the world that we are living in is dangerous ... or so it seems. We have grown so accustomed to fighting that we do not notice the fight, or why we need to fight.
When I speak to you, I speak to your shield and you speak to mine. When I see you, I will see only what you show me, and I will show you what I think you can see. A handshake, a glance, a dance of smiles.
He plays at being grown-up, and I am conscious that I am supposed to be on the other side of the fence - I have been there, and I see the many paths which twist along the way from here to there. I am conscious that I will probably never mother, because I become too easily a friend. I am conscious that I am gentle, that my instinct is to let the world seep in like morning light onto the edge of the bed, the misty awakening from dreams.
He is too young to see the gap, I am too old to bridge it. I think of conversations past and it all seems so very foolish that we force ourselves to erect walls, we force our young to erect walls, and never teach them how to truly reach across the other side.
I am in pain because I speak from behind barriers built for me. I am fortunate because I know where they are and how to get around them. But the many faces which stopped by to say hello are plaster casts, moulded into the machinery of society. They show only their functional status - since that is all that is necessary - and the wonderous child inside has long since been extinguished.
In the end, all we are left with are labels. I am a wife, I am a girlfriend. I am a carpenter, but I want to study to become a computer engineer - that's where the money is. I am a father. I am a student of law. What is your name? What do you do? No, I mean, what do you do? What do you do for fun? Are you married? I am bi-sexual, are you interested?
I am a poet but my poetry does not make me.
25 January 2003, Saturday, 1:47 AM
Alter ego of dandruff
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