IISZ 2018 Challenge #2 - Death by Words

[nibbed]

Moose and Squirrel

One burden of childhood is time,
hour stacked upon hour
a wall of bricks stretching 
into an endless forever.

You learn this first at school
through the torture of the hands
of the clock that will not move,
no matter how hard you stare.

Eternity is cruel when you’re always waiting
under your desk, like my mother was
paralyzed by the siren, the inevitable 
extinction, that blinds, then burns, leaving
 
your shadow an immortal chalk drawing
as what you were emptied from the room,
a spilled cup that no longer has to stand
amidst the devastation, under the nun’s waiting
ruler to spell that final word. 

For me, oblivion was as far away as the dinosaurs.
We still counted missiles in our icy war
our gun was bigger, or it wasn’t.
It became a game of spies at recess. After-

school we would sit eye-damagingly close 
to a black and white
television, its ears stretching 
like the rabbit, our fool magician hero could never

seem to pull from the hat between his antlers. 
He would tear away his sleeve, and reach down.
Instead of a bunny, he would reveal a savage beast.

This is the second burden of childhood.


~~

Words used: blinds, bunny, burden, burns, cruel, devastation, emptied, extinction, eternity, fool, forever, icy, immortal, oblivion, paralyzed, savage, torture

Todd, that was amazing. The words became your friends, without strain-
you flowed.

nibbed