they gave us their insecurities

a village or a town i know not

but a middle class house i think

on a narrow-walled blind street

its red bricks with age gone pink

bricks steeped in outdated ideals

that they actually think are older

thick walls to keep the heat out

all they do is make the hearts go colder

living that way till it makes no sense

but there they must live and hence

this inadvertent inheritance

their morbid defence of dense thick walls

creates this immense miasmic void

that nurtures their insecurities

until they talk of pride and purity

and the dangers of impurities

work for money work hard and never beyond venture

and raise a family that is similarly indentured

shackled and burdened you must fit the cast the muffling mask

but she refused to blend in to give in to this farce

where love is scarce and happiness doesn’t last

where joy is but dried polished muck

smiles that come from how you measure up

smiles that are there just because you smile

back. you must treat them like

the insolent child who’ll use language foul

just to see a reaction see if the grownups scowl

she just told them, no, it’s not funny

and i’m not amused

happiness weighed down by gold

easily sold out to the carpet that we’re all woven into

the intricate web of your social groups and their traditions of old

the cross-hatching weave of relatives who haven’t got a clue

about what it is that one must do, but she knew

so she sat still, biding her time, rusting, until

being rubbed the wrong way sharpened her

and then she cut her way through

you served your time

so why should she?

why should she be held prisoner by your insecurities?

life just happens to be bigger and you happen not to see it, you see?

with your petty ideas and hard-cast lines which you expect to be

followed and walked upon to eternity

these lines that you read that you believe should be tread

that you think are eternal are not as old as you think

you assumed they’re set in stone because you were born into it

that’s your tragedy

not hers

she’ll get by if she’s any good at what she does

that’s the confidence you were supposed to instill in her

but instead you tried to bind her in your own fears

about stability and money and assured careers

anxieties of the future and all the other silly mess

that’s fermenting in your suffocating head

wrapped up tight in your own warped morality

her beauty crushed by the obscene cruelty

of your hard-headed narrow-mindedness

the red bricks pink are but from yesterday

and life is so much longer so why do you lay

so much emphasis on the security of your walls

these gilded cages these imprisoning halls

that you think  have lasted ages but are recent constructs

that have already outlived their petty utility

and it’s a pity that you don’t see it

do you see?

that there need not be an inventory

of things to achieve and things to do

what you perceive is not really true

flowering trees in the blistering heat

do all you can, try and beat

her now

she’s suddenly invincible in this moment somehow

coz the threads held taut got too tight

and she cut her way through and is now free

the sun still beats down

but she sits in the shade of flowering trees

and whiles away her time writing poetry

about a middle class home in a village or a town

or a long-forgotten cobbled city street