The liminal space
between your scalp
and that white plastic helmet
is a futile effort (or symbol)
at protecting oneself
from the dangers of the outside world.
The hands of the windmill wave
innocently, menacingly,
as if to say,
“an eighth of an inch of plastic
won’t shelter your cranium
from fluttering like butterfly
wings dumped into a fire,
when I release my arms onto you.
The hubris is on the name,
High-Density Polyethylene.
What the fuck is that?
I reckon it is not dense enough
from preventing
your sinews from goo-ping
like melted marshmallow
into the dirt.”
In this promise,
the white helmet lies defeated
and scattered against the mountaintop grass.
The curved plastic
reflects the sky,
and
stares across the liminal space
at its true enemy, while
the arms of the windmill
gently breeze…
Unlike Don Quixote,
these foes may never encounter
themselves locked in mortal combat
and that, in on of itself,
creates a kind of tension.
Similar, but not equivalent
to that of a child crying,
while the father sleeps
in the adjacent room.
The tension is in the silence
contrasting with the cries,
the tension is hoping to hear
steps and instead
hearing a door slamming shut.
An ask for help euthanized before
completing its youth.
The memory is grey
and for many years you have wished
the winter of your emotions
could be baptized by fire and warmth
instead of ashes and tears.
That grey point in time is far past gone now
and your feelings stand proud,
more durable and equally as
perennial as white plastic,
that will decompose in the landfill,
for generations to come.
In the liminal space between
helmet and scalp,
between white helmet and stiff white iron,
between distant father
and starved son,
so sheltered, so, so not touching,
in that liminal space,
may we learn how to breathe
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