Now, Born Scared

Children enter this realm,

Without fear—

Everything is glorious,

Each sensation is an unknown birthright,

Terror comes not into view

Until a blackened soul pries loose

The fiery chasms of decay—

It is from this point forward—

That blissfulness is purged from vocabulary,

Where delight is overwrought by newfound

Vestibules endlessly overflowing with distraught and unnatural echoes of betrayal—

Never again are we able to willingly return to the serenity found within the baptismal pond—Where those early ripples become only the faintest of fleeting memories, an endless array of moistened kisses—ever eagerly willing affection upon the lost innocence welled inside—where tender passions dotingly caress the rapturous currents of a deeply sentimental stream—

A revolution spins obtuse in orbit, unto a forgiveness we never learned to forget, a belief swimming freely, beneath the layers of a skewed reality, where possibility’s yet to abandon us—

The deeper one goes, the light fails to show, darkening and darkening…

It is here, where sharks circle our intensely personal and primitive of dreams.

Times Turn into Times Turned Over in Future Times

Can you remember back to a time when you were only mere days removed from getting high praise for walking on two legs?

Can you recall, those early moments in the kitchen, when you’d stare up high at those marble countertops and dream of seeing what exists beyond its aerie reach?

Have you forgotten, how disappointed you were, when you found out it wasn’t all you’re imagination painted it to be?

Whatever happened to all the comparisons?

     “Oh, how talented you’re child is, he’ll be the next Hemmingway or Hawthorne for sure”

“Oh, what amazing athleticism you’re kid possesses.  When I look at him I see the next Jackie Robinson, Walter Payton.  He reminds me a lot of Ty Cobb, as if they themselves were around to have watched him play”

“ You’re little boy has such an imagination.  He’s so entertaining. I see a younger version of Bruce Lee, maybe Errol Flynn”

When was the last time your scribbly-scrawled blots of crayon were hung up on the fridge?  When was the last time you’re great aunt called you her little Picasso or Van Gogh, not even considering what their backstory’s were?  When was the last time your grandfather pulled a quarter from your ear, and you thought you were witnessing something bigger than the world itself?

Life gets in the way.  Doesn’t it?

And you close the door behind you.  Scuffing the snow off from your dirty boot soles, greeting those inside, warmly, yet complaining about the travails you endured to simply make it to their house.  And then, you see the little one, and you say, glowing from ear to ear, “How’s my little Marilyn today?” and she shyly shrugs her shoulders…. that’s when you pull a dollar from her hair, as if it had been hiding out in those blonde curls all the day.

Over at D'verse, for Meeting the Bar this past Thursday. Victoria offered up the discussion about exploring childhood and it's memories.  I've been really sick this week, just feeling a bit better upon waking up a few hours ago, so I'm hoping the meds are working.  In any case, I missed joining the party, yet thought I'd still take part in the prompt.  I actually had a piece that I had started a long time back that fit this theme rather well.  

The idea of how children's perspectives change and how their expectations alter upon finding some answers interests me.  I wrote the second question/stanza a while back and filled in the rest of this piece from there for this discussion.  If you haven't already, I urge you all to stop on by D'Verse, read Victoria's article and check out the poems shared, as you can do for the other linked discussions as well.  

Rogue

I used to love the spotlight

Occupying the central part of every stage,

I needed the company of strangers

I required their love

The reaffirming looks they provided me,

I always had the highest aspirations

Clouds could not contain

All the ideas I thought I knew,

I never paid attention to problems or side effects,

My life was how I had wished it was

At night others would sleep and have dreams,

To which they would aspire to,

I’d close my eyes and the dreams would review

The events I just completed that very day,

Time, Time shifts, Shifts away,

One moment you’ll have everything

The next they’ve forgotten who you are

My world is not what it once was,

Where I used to surround I now evade,

I once loved the attention,

Now I’ve gone underground, I’ve went rogue