The City Hurts People, Mom

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WindWalker
Senior Member

since 2001-10-12

Posts 1218

0 posted 2009-10-17 03:04 AM

The City Hurts People, Mom

Mom? Why do we live here? In the city?
Why can't we live somewhere, anywhere, else?
The city hurts people, mom.

Children say the darndest things,
ask the toughest questions.
Why? because they're not tough questions at all,
not to them.  They need input.  Real information.
and what can I say?  Can I speak the truth here?
Can I untangle my responses quickly enough
to come up with some real truth?
That won't be a lie, something even I
am not too poor to buy?

What's wrong with here? is what comes out.
Defensive, even to my own child,
that has to say something about me, yes.
You don't like our apartment?  Your friends at school?
More defensiveness, now an attack.  On my own child,
What am I hiding under the bed?

It doesn't feel right, mom.  There are places
(he watches nature shows a lot)
where there are rivers, where grass grows
and animals live in holes in the rocks.
There are places with long, wide shores
along blue-green seas and the waves thunder
but it's not like, noise, it's like, music, mom.  And
if you stand on a rock you can see out forever.
I like those places.  Here it's just people,
and endless ugly buildings that hold in the smog.
It's noisy and smelly.  The wind is cold, dirty.
the sun is all wrong and the insects are ugly too.
When I think about it I'm scared.
The people here are dead mom.  They just don't know it.

I'm getting frustrated—angry?  What junk is that?
But I know what he's saying, I've seen it too.
I've seen it growing, and felt it inside myself also.
The deadening to the ugliness, the smell, the noise
but mostly to the deadpan meaninglessness of this place.
When I was forced to leave home
(go ahead, guess why!)
I ran off and the only place that would take me
—without question—was the city.
in the city the Devil gave me a son—not a man.

I hear you, my son.  Holding him tightly and he squirms:
rejection?  Fear?  Uncertainty?  Quickly:
I have a job here now.  It pays our rent, buys our food,
your school supplies and the cable.
It's all I can do now, Simon.  It's all I know how to do.
Opening my hands, letting my arms fall in my lap,
watching his reaction.

Pulling away from me, looking deep in my eyes
and I see an old man, some kind of ancient wisdom
behind the gray eyes.  He knows.
That's not true mom.  We can leave—anytime.
All it takes from you is the courage to break free,
and for me, it's just a matter of holding on
just a bit longer
to my childhood innocence.  When we get there
I'll be the man.  You won't be alone anymore.

I guess I'm not the adult any longer
in this relationship.  Maybe yes, I can relax.
Let go.  Hear the sea birds call over the ocean.
Maybe, sometimes, the Devil can make a mistake.

AncientHippie
Member

since 2009-10-15

Posts 411
Surfing the Cosmic Flow

1 posted 2009-10-17 09:06 AM

Windwalker, this is a work of extreme beauty and emotion. This is the epic story of life, and, as is far too often the case, life is not just. I feel the mother's anguish, and cry for the waste of the child's intelligence, extinguished on the city streets.

Sutra 2: Reflection is not solely that which we see in the mirror of Now, but is also the contemplation of why that image is.
--Jim's Guide to Enligh

Midnitesun

Member Empyrean

since 2001-05-18

Posts 28647
Gaia

2 posted 2009-10-17 12:30 PM

"All it takes from you is the courage to break free"

I have found this to always be true, WW.

latearrival
Member Ascendant

since 2003-03-21

Posts 5499
Florida

3 posted 2009-10-17 07:55 PM

This is an excelent write. Enjoyed and understand. sometimes we do need to listen and try to make changs. latearrival

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