- Vol. 10
- Chapter 12
Everything Disappears
On a good day, a child was born with the wind;
Newfound hope, in a small house bounded by trees,
The house that you stepped in, with the weight of your own limbs
You became my little dreamcatcher, just as you chased away the nightmares.
And with a gentle breeze, you’d sway. Soon to be carried away.
Measurements were due; height, weight, tooth and nails
Almost weightless once, then you took up a crib,
Not even seven summers had passed before you outgrew the blanket.
Asking again for a bedtime tale, or a divine lullaby
While cautiously hiding your baby teeth under your pillow
Little did we know, we’d soon be unable to plow
The rewards, the messages, an assurance of warmth, tenderness.
Soon they had to buy a new machine to understand how much you could weigh
And how many hours it took for you to last a day
Was it them or you who filled your pillows
with pages and threw out the old audiobooks?
Baby steps turned into a marathon, but you’d still learn to venture
the forests, and find beings the books wouldn’t tell you about
And you circled the bushes till the squirrels were drawn out
Dug out worms and threw them in the distance.
Everything was not perfect, but perhaps it was okay.
Unlike now, where the colors bother to light up a fastidious world
And the dogma has given its dogs new collars –
The start of an old chapter but the pages are dollars.
Eyes to the static, drowsy to the murmuring ache
Hurled in the shadows of your home, back to your bed
And you miss the texture of crayons, on paper and in your hands
Everything Disappears
Far more, you miss the breeze from the lofty treetops
Everyday, you think about reversing the timepiece
When you were just a baby, and the only family game was guessing your weight
The machine broke down long ago, but it remains in the basement corner
Remember how you feared that place? Why do you now wish to dwell there?
One day, you’ll revisit it. You’ll smear the charcoal dust on your sleeves
And you’ll make your way up to scout the house, emptied
Spider webs more prominent than light, the furniture perch the same
The hazy mirrors unreflective; the room upstairs has a smell unbearable
It stings your nose, blurs your eyes; it’s embroidered with you after all.
An empty table offers empty chairs like earth at a graveyard
But your feet take you to the field now barren, so you can come to terms
With the solitude, with the fact that everything disappears
Like the forest and all its populace,
You, too, are dimming. So is the sun that’s moving away
Drawing out the shade from whatever is left.
But your weight bears heavy enough, right here, right now.
You’ve grown, child of the wind. Don’t disappear just yet.