Softly and over time,
You remain hardened without any effort
At all.
Everything is practicality winning out.
Utilitarianism,
For want of a better term.
Fear for
Another.
Defence and survivalism
And so on.
When your head is at 45 degrees
For most of the day,
Eyes open most of the
Night,
Your walls are at least chest high.
Jacket zipped -
Buttons fastened -
Laces tucked within your shoes to avoid any
Snags.
Pretence will do where
Otherwise an air of alienation would envelope
You.
And so an arms length becomes the
Normal unit of measure.
And so on.
When you live
Through these minor fluctuations of realism,
Never quite gaining a foothold on
Solid ground,
Always being the lost puzzle piece,
Everything is suspect.
Second guesses lead to a third and to the
Nth degree.
And so this leads me
To yesterday,
In the middle of a playground sandpit
Walking away from a young girl
Who was just trying to be friendly.
My auto response button stuck down.
Before even feeling the sand shift
Under my feet,
I am away.
Maybe she was normal,
Maybe she was a freak.
Though if she wasn’t she didn’t give me the
Secret handshake we freaks like to exchange
Under tables in small Parisian cafes.
And either way
She’d probably watched people walk away from her
All her short
Life.
Who knew?
Again and as usual
All of this had to be brought to my attention
After the fact.
(For someone so interested in human behaviour
I seem to be remarkably
Insensitive to other peoples feelings...)
I took it all away with me and forgot about it
Until this morning, when I kind of felt what she
Did,
Or must have.
And it was nothing.
Neither sadness nor rejection but
The normality of it all.
Oh look -
They’re leaving me alone
Sitting here in the playground with
My sandals off and little
Red painted toenails
Peeking up from beneath the sand.
No surprise at all.
And my stomach hurt for a moment
And all those other things
Inside and out
Cumulus rain clouds
Pins and needles
The survival
Pretence and
Alienation
Minor tricks of the moronic
Trickling down the back of your neck
They all
Gained a little perspective.