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.
