Youth

When I was young, young and helpless and too young to know, too young to be able to understand (let alone speak for myself) when I was pure and sweet and defenceless and mute, when I was innocent, when I was too young to ask, insufficiently schooled in the ways of the world, before I had the wherewithal and the nous, when my chin gave off the milky-white of a daisy, when I was a coalescence of freckles and neatly pursed crimson lips, when I was silly and sweet and buttery-smooth, when I was slight of build and neat of hair, when my shoes were polished and clean but frequently scuffed, before I was able to stand up by myself, when I relied on a hand or an arm, when I could not even talk, when I was a wisp, when I cried on demand, when I sometimes screamed blue murder, before I had a handle on it all, before I knew which way to turn… 

you were mean and sometimes not nice, you were short-tempered with me, you shouted, you didn’t give me your all, your full and undivided attention, you turned away, you mocked and belittled me, you used harsh words, you delighted in poking, in teasing, because you were unhappy you were hurting within, you were on the boil I guess, trying to throw off your shackles even at that advanced age, you were shrivelled and small, you were withered, full of resentment you were, but then you were mostly bored and frustrated and had little to do with your time, and you couldn’t make friends or connect and you certainly couldn’t see your own value, your value to others, and you were slowly dying inside and out, and you knew, oh how you knew, but you had no way out, 

when I was young and sweet and pure and chaste and had only joy or nothing much in my heart, only a whim to explore, before I was able to understand one last tiny thing about how things play out in this chaotic world, I was exposed to you and your tepid despair and your slow death and sense of disillusionment and your lack of trust, before I knew what it takes to be a a grown-up adult man, you misled me and made me feel wrong and you punished me and made me feel insecure, but it was only because you were slowly dying inside, so thoroughly disaffected and marginalised and left out to dry, before I knew what it meant to survive, you could hardly look me in the eye and say that you loved me, you couldn’t fix your gaze for more than a second because on the inside you were disturbed and unsettled and nervous and ill at ease and you had no way of showing your love, before I was old enough to know, you broke your promises and your word and you mumbled and fumbled and said a whole host of confusing things, gave off mixed messages, but it was only because you had no inner conviction, no rock, no ballast, no sense of certainty inside, because when you were young and sweet and pure yourself, before you had any ideas of your own, before you’d had a chance to make up your own mind, when you were a bundle of love and a treat to the eye, they were not consistent with you, they were not unyielding in their love, in their attention towards you, before you knew what it took to get by in this world, when your cheeks were like munchkins and your gaze so distilled, their attention was divided and was away from you for even only a second and you never got it back -- you can never get it back -- when you tugged at her skirt and she shooed you away, when you were too young to know, when you needed to trust, they defied you and left you in doubt, but it was only because they were busy and flustered and making more and making it bigger, and trying, trying so hard, trying to make it, to make a good living, make everything right, they were trying to try, but then they forgot about feeling, so that when you were just a sweet hapless innocent little boy they turned away for a moment, as I have turned away from them -- it takes only one second -- see, now I know what it’s like now, just in the blinking of an eye, when all that was needed was space, not being distracted, the infinite space, that space that is sometimes terrifyingly open, but the space in which all this exists.