What is a child? - Part I

I have always wanted to remain as I am,

as a child should be,

and never become fully formed;

at least not in the adult world as we know it

or as we see it

today

In our time

And in all the ways in which we are expected to be

Sophisticated

Directional

Imputed in supposed or visited sanity

To be able to be accepted

In ways none of us really understand or are fulfilled by

and in which most of us

seem to find ourselves grasping for meaning.

I never knew, when I was young

That my feelings were allowed

Or even what they might be.

Don’t get me wrong,

I knew what I was feeling in the moment a lot of the time,

it was just that what I was feeling was more like a seeping or volcanic cauldron

and the forming of something solid or definable

other than the seeping of the inner contents of all the Earth

was not possible;

Or if it was,

Noone gave me the words or the facial expressions to convey it.

I also had no understanding of why everyone

kept talking about the weather and the groceries and something called “work” and why everyone either was doing something the wrong way or why everything seemed so trivial

when the entire space around them and me seemed entirely permeated

with what wasn’t said

what wasn’t expressed

what wasn’t dealt with,

and why everyone wasn’t either crying all the time

or on the other hand

screaming at one another

as to what they weren’t able to do for each other.

It just didn’t seem to me,

someone who did not know how to feed myself,

how to drive a car,

how to wash a dish,

or how to tuck myself in (which seemed to be true across many birthdays and which many were too high a number to admit to)

but it didn’t seem to me that

the people around me knew what was happening to them.

Maybe this was something in the emotional realm,

possibly the spiritual realm,

or something that the word “psychic” could possibly be ascribed,

it was the only lens which felt obvious and prescient at all times for me,

but in which noone was either allowing to be viewed or expressed,

but more terrifyingly for me

was not even known as existing

except maybe in some private universe when we all attended church

or in vulnerable moments when there was a falling out

with other adults

or when one of us children behaved badly

in some way

to them.

All of this reinforced the sense that the emotional and spiritual world,

those spaces,

those interactions,

and those celebrations,

are a private space inside your own body

which can never be expressed

except if given some greater pursuit

or study

or authority

which you yourself cannot embody

on your own.

I’m willing to admit this possibly is heavily due to the Southern Traditions in the United States,

and why the church is a place of great destruction

as well as a place of very real spiritual expression

for many people,

and the reason why this expression is destructive

when everyone is so divorced from themselves

as to outsource their own spiritual devastation

onto other groups

when all of our own needs and authentic divinity in ourselves

has been ignored or cut off or driven to hiding or even expulsion

the vision of unknown people or cultures or traditions

is too much to bear

when our lens is directed for us and is so limited

that we forget where we started to go wrong

since the time of our birth.

I don’t remember my birth,

But I do remember what it was like to be a child

because I still feel it within me

and see it in my nieces.

For them it is experienced every day,

in every moment.

For me

I am consciously warring with the exterior world

which refuses to acknowledge

that I am fully human,

just like you.

I don’t mean I as a man,

but I as a child - who has grown into a community -

because America does not recognize our communities.

We do not ever escape to what happened to us

when we were children

which I believe is the universe’s way

of holding us accountable

and true to our real selves

and achieving some cosmic balance.

When men become dictators

it is a manifestation

of the worst separations of a being’s true self

and their flailing against it

by imposing their inhumanity on others,

because they are terrified

of being with their true selves

along with others who our also truly human.

That is what our alien experiences with any current moment really entails,

is countless others not being able to deal with what hurt them

or what they weren’t able or allowed to express

when they were 2 and trying to play in their kitchen

or the dirt patch outside

or the field down the street.

Suffering is passed down and passed on unless it is dealt with

as an individual

and we allow others to help us in dealing with it.

But this is all merely just musing on very real

but intellectual existentialism.

So what am I really talking about?

Well it comes down to this question to me…

What is a child?