Being #1

When told to sit still and be quiet, we train, unwitting,

deep inside our childhood, certain hardnesses.

Words not said come to knot the jawbone,

or inhibit shoulder or hip, and cause

loss of freedom in walking, breathing, loving.

With each small setback, every 'no' whose reason

seems at odds with who we are, the knots

tighten. We end up trussed, unbending, a shape

we had no say in, yet are as loath to change

as to put on another person's clothes.

All play gone, we gather dust, our mind

too stale to tell what web of tethers holds us—

what kind of creature would we have to be

to see inside our self, and seeing, unbind?

© Simon Brod, 2022