A Scene at a Turning Age

I have contemplated the reasons

We write so frequently of our childhood.

Like running tongue over chipped tooth,

Moving from one cliff’s edge to the next.

Feeling up the differences, 

Rolling them around, to savor.

Skipping steps between milestones

Markers meant for imaginary life;

Lived, and then recycled.

I am a compilation of multiple lives

Piled upon one another, 

A suffocating stack of stories.

Books have leapt from their shelves

Pushed themselves onto my path. 

Marked out for me, 

Expressed inclination, where 

I belong amongst yellowed pages. 

Newspapers pushed out of print.

Buried beneath concrete blockades, 

Ineffective at stopping the curious onlooker. 

But for some reason, we turn our heads. 

We find interest does not sustain,

Nor do our stories captivate more than the over-indulgent stranger.

Words find themselves in a pool, 

Circling metal-tinged glimpses of how we were once orchestrated. 

And bleakness takes firm, 

Rhyming with the notion of normality.

We have yet to find the subtlety in which

Consumption is possible.