I remember a time when we were one, when we were what they called "whole,"
a budding self wandering the forest of childhood in quiet awe

and I remember the hunters.

the words, locked doors in the cold, and worse;
how they struck her through the heart, how her legs gave way,

how she crumpled to the ground and bled
and bled
as the forest withered around her.

And now we are here, tired children of the dried-up husk,
stumbling through a world that sees us as deluded, dangerous,
or perhaps, at best, a child's game.

We are weary. We are wounded, we are sharp and jagged edges,
but we are also so much more.
We have become so much more. No simple collection of fragments,

but the family we never had -
the family we deserved.

Together, I know we'll find our place in the sun,
unbreakable as many as we never were as one.

At first, I feared you. You were a monster,
and here I was, trapped in my body with you.

You were fangs, claws, hissed words and glowing, scornful eyes. A shadow, lurking always at the back of my mind.

I wished you would go away.
I tried so hard to make you go away.

But then, we both learned to listen.

I listened to you, and saw how badly I was allowing people to treat me - treat us.
You listened to me, and saw how you had driven people away from you - from us.

I saw the chances I had not taken,
and you saw the chances that had been lost,
thanks to fear, to pride, to shame.

And so we made our peace, and walked into the future, together.

And now I see you today: kneeling to speak to children, holding porcelain and hands with the utmost care -

frail, small, lovely things in a world of coldness, of cruelty, that you rise to meet with iron in your eyes and sincerity in your soul -

and I wonder how I could have ever wanted you gone.

Close. Welcoming. My
name. David. Absurdly—I mean, out of
tune. Ordinary language permits
the paraphrase:

Things could have been. But
actually are. Countless ways,
certain descriptions. To consider,
“ways things could have been.”

Things might be. The possibilities,
the propositions, the structures.

© Matthew Harlovic

With the box lid closed
It's dark inside,
There are no colours
We can't abide.
But a golden sliver of light seeps in,
To expose the colours there within.
We see red when enraged,
And scarlet dancers crowd our stage;
A red-blooded male brags virility
Through rose-coloured glasses of masculinity.
Some grow green with envy,
Reveal they're yellow in enmity,
Are blue when feeling empathy,
Turn blue holding out for sympathy,
Are tickled pink with comedy,
And white as a sheet with tragedy,
Or brown-nosed with syncophany.
If your yellow-bellied you may run,
And green-gilled after Jamaican ***,
Write purple prose when versifying,
Ashen coloured when you're dying.
True colours show outside the box,
Use grey cells to colour unorthodox.
Our true colours are harlequin,
That fade to black at our end.