I cannot enter the big world

I cannot enter the big world

Yet

Because they will not let me through the gates or

Onto the escalators.

They're reminded of the bones of my elbows and the

Sweet nectar of blood

And I find myself less troubled by them.

I wander, with unknown purpose.

Someone said to me "we'll find it when we get there"

So I stuck to my lane and ran.

I wanted to be faster, however.

But my endurance felt that was unlikely,

Forced myself to stop and drink up the comments

Of the old and the wise.

I was told by the world that I must accept it unconditionally,

However, I asked the same in return and it bobbed its head and sighed.

I was dissatisfied, and turned to go,

I felt a hand on my shoulder so I brushed it off, sarcastically,

And told the world I refuse to explore a lifetime with overcast horizons.

I half expected it to go back on its word and explain every beauty.

But it had given up and lost hope.

I squint, and there is a human before me, shaking with the responsibility of being brave and unloved at the same time.

In the blink of an eye they're gone, and so something changes inside me;

I realise not everything has to be plain and simple,

The game is not theirs to control anymore, as long as I think about what could be done differently

And how I never should have burrowed myself deep into the cavities of profit over passion.

See? Something's changed already.

I cannot enter the big world now

Because it would not walk beside my insatiable curiosity

Or foster the things I believe,

The stories I carry.

I refuse to step into the world people are so caught up in

Because the fireside promises I made to myself last January

Before I hauled up the cries of my ancestors,

Were more important than the badge-of-all-compliance.

What an honour.

Let the hot air balloons soar until the seagulls remind them where Earth is.

And maybe they'll reconsider their expectations of the next of us.

~