Some children are simply born to be adults. Their solemn miens and myriad questions mark them. They hang back, observe, and sometimes Make Statements of facts as they’ve observed them, which is frustrating when adults don’t take them seriously. Age is often their sole qualifier for childhood, as they are extraordinarily bad at grasping the skills necessary to navigate it successfully.
I was one such child. My favorite and least favorite photograph of myself is from the third grade, where my unsmiling face, striped blue-and-gray sweater and gray double-knit slacks make me look like a middle manager disappointed in a sales call. I drifted on the edges of the elementary playground, finding the other kids unpredictable and apt to behave inexplicably, drawing adult censure that I very much wanted to avoid. Through junior high I realized the others’ ability to mesh and form groups was a danger to everyone flying solo. The isolation and bullying – their disgust for me and things I could not control like appearance and personality – underscored how powerless I was.
But, it would all be fine – adulthood would save me, and I would have choices and not have to to anything I didn’t want or deal with anyone I didn’t like, ever, ever again.
There are probably more of us enduring this moment than we know, mourning greatly the reminder that we promised ourselves a world we cannot possibly deliver.
back-to-back cinquain, untitled
“It’s out of my hands”
Pounds like a woodpecker’s beak
Sharp stabs on repeat:
We gave. Politicians gained.
We gave our power to fear –
Complicit silence followed.
We don’t grieve what we don’t love.
Do we love enough?
Love our neighbors as ourselves
Enough to stand up?
