Screaming Streaming Dreaming

A kid is in the corner,
Sequestered from the world,
Cut off from the joys and sorrows
of playtime.

She cast wistful longing looks
over her shoulder,
In the direction of the commotion,
Acknowledging the distancing separation
created by the space.

She turns back to the corner
her nose is
supposed to be focused on
with reluctant
willingness
Until she begins to notice
the cracks in the wall
in front of her face.

Interest grows in her intellect.
                  What is beyond?
   What lies on the other side
of the barrier which appears
to keeps her closed within only a small
perspective?

Who told her to be there?
   What is making her stay
      locked
        into the crease
        created by someone else's
structure?
She marvels at the consistency
of the pattern she notices
scattered across the surface.

Is it paper?
Is it paint?
Will it peel or scratch?
Will it support her feet or
prop up her head?
Is she allowed to touch
to feel
     to experience
             its texture without
                   marring it?

What if someone saw her do it?
     What would they say?
           Would she be punished?

Isn't sitting there punishment
     enough?

What did she do wrong?
What was her crime?
What did she break?
Whose ego did she offend?

Isolated from the others
her choice surrounds her
     with pressure
        to decide.

To stay or go?
Consequences will result
     from either action,
but what does she prefer?
       What is her purpose?

Who will answer her
   unending stream of
      vague questions?
Unanswerable questions
 in
   all reality because
      who knows what
           the answers
are.

But she dreads being wrong,
    which often seems
          inevitable.

Swinging her legs now
    with impatient movements
       threatening to lift her
         off her seat to
              move into the unknown.

Without warning
the film
    dissolves from her view and
she is left
staring into
    a two-way mirror
             only she is now on
both sides, watching and
    reacting to her image
as
it changes with each inhale
   and exhale of breath from her lungs.

She is stunned by the
            brilliant light
encasing her, but she is
aware of the darkness
present just outside her
reach.
      She senses its interest
in her space with a
   scary curiosity and she
shifts uncomfortably in
   her seat.

She is not alone.

Honestly, she wonders at the
    point of it all and
genuinely desires to make it
     better.
By doing so she feels she makes
    it worse
by discounting
what it is already
instead of
  praising its existence at all.


A.C.