I'm not sure this fits an abstraction of sadness, but disillusionment is sort of a loss in its own way, something that one could grieve over when you realise something integral and precious is gone for good. It's as good as a cluster headache would permit today, anyhow.
ELEGY FOR INNOCENCE
you believed in heroes when you were five
you believed in heroes when you were five
there was Mighty Isis with her tiara and white
mini dress soaring through the air and the magical amulet that guaranteed
superpowers to defeat evil except that you didn’t know that evil didn’t come
with recognizable Fu Manchu mustaches bushy sideburns and bad 70s clothes but
much closer to home words cloaked in your grandaunt’s cheap flowered polyester
each overly bright artificial bloom bearing a caption she hung onto your 12
year old shoulders
captions like your thighs are chunky but that’s all right
you’re good at hiding all your fat in your ass so you’ll look splendid in a
cheongsam because you need a round ass to wear one words gussied up in
concerned skirts and demure slacks telling Mom you watch that girl of yours
she’s running around with boys words planted firmly in the bedrock of assuming
you're already a little slut but you’re 11 you’re 11 years old and you don’t
know that you’ve already been marked and
condemned you don’t even know that boys are dangerous creatures that should be
kept far far away
much
later you discover that magical amulets
aren’t real that there’s no talisman against classmates dismantling your name
making fun of you or that girl your best friend who bullied you into lying for
her to teachers and left you with the fallouts that got you punished and you
never thought that this could be wrong because you were best friends and
protecting her was important
you didn’t know she was soft sawdust in a brittle
shell until the day you stood up to her (her face crumpled like used tissue
tears leaking out of her eyes like a plastic bag full of water with holes
stabbed into it not long after that she moved and you never saw her again)
you never knew that you were cracked a
glass jar with the heart weeping out of you like black tears not until you lay against the lulling rhythm of someone else's heart you reached for your own and found
nothing
black hollow black hole
blip blip blip the machinery turns
blip
blip warning battery running low
blip
blp
bl
b
there are no heroes at forty-five
8 comments:
Well, you certainly come up with creative things when you have a headache! The loss of innocence is like a hearing a heart break.
I remember the day child-I realised that no talisman in the world could stop people from bullying you - it felt like a heartbreak. Thank you! I tried...best I could come up with and still be on time!
Oh, this is good! The loss of self, childhood, illusions is as much a loss as losing a different person. Why do some adults think children have no brains and no feelings?
Jane! Thank you! I really don't know why some adults would even assume that about children - I teach enough of them to know that they feel very deeply indeed. How many children have gone back home in tears because their best friend didn't want to be their best friend that day! I think one remembers things like that even more so because they're felt so strongly in childhood.
Childhood friendships are full of disillusionment and heartbreak. I still remember the party a 6th grade classmate gave where she invited every girl in the class but me...that was 50 years ago!
And I've had friends betray me as an adult too...it still hurts. And yet we don't really give up, do we? We have to leave ourselves open to hurt in order to have a friendship. But yes, the innocence is gone...we know what could happen.
The losses we suffer as we grow up eventually make us what we are. This is really good.
Where are you? Is everything okay?
Hello?
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