Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Translucent Chains

A child's eye view

of life's possibilities

is light beyond boundaries,

a vision bright as to blind

an adult's perspective

long relegated to the shadows.

---

Slowly the light dims,

the vibrant colors growing flat,

the edges sanding smooth.

---

Countless innocuous admonitions

handed down through generations

form an unseen family heirloom

of dysfunction we all carry inside.

---

Growing.

Choking.

---

Sewing a web

around your dreams

in translucent chains

hiding hideous across

the expanse of your life.

---

Ah, young childhood -

the unfettered joy

of a hot water heater

cardboard box "fort"

or ratty paper kite,

happiness that trumps

the best grown up high

you'll ever have.

---

But it's a drug in itself,

the flame we all chase

our whole adult lives,

whether through workaholism,

or alcoholism,

or religion,

or sex.

---

It's the gift that keeps on giving,

as old as history bestowing

the first vestiges of neuroses upon us

through predators/famine/drought, whatever.

---

Our futile race to taste

the primal pleasure again

unwittingly extinguishes

that very fire in our children,

our own ember doused

from our parents' drab rendition

of this same sad song.

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