Remember this feeling.
Being engulfed in an alive yet soulless building, I hear it
hum beneath the robotic tapping of keys, muted conversations, opening and
closing doors. Ignored, but ever present.
The eyes that brush past me with a sweet, almost pitying,
parental smile – someday, the eyes say, you’ll climb the ladder. You’ll escape
from subservience, gain some different words by your name and earn more to
support a bigger house, family and lifestyle.
Experiencing the little maypoles of our lives, the computer,
and how it has become the axis of existence from sunrise to sunset.
And above them, rapidly flickering, rectangular moons lined
in formation, saluting productivity and humanities conquering of nature.
The furtive comments in the kitchen – “Thank God it’s Friday,”
“Oh, things could be worse, after all it is a Monday…”- worship of the Monday to
Friday Gods.
Hearing the words “child poverty”, “social housing” and
“welfare reform” tossed around like balloons at a child’s party…wondering about
those kids.
Shiny plants bending toward sunlight they never see, sucking
supplements from coloured pots of doctored earth.
How free the seabirds
seem outside, ducking and diving over the divide between civilisation and the
oceans
Remember lying in a hospital bed, bound by hollow vines…
The silent question resting on my lips: what on earth am I
doing here?
*
So I try to hang on to this feeling. To keep it in my bones
to remind me of the reality I could have chosen.
