They say, we are what we are
and our life is what it is.
No.
We are what we are not too.
We are that man too,
whom we envied
for his golden watch,
for his motor bike,
for his better English,
for his leather shoes -
and whom we stabbed in the nape.
There is unborn poetry
in our shallow minds too;
though we will never be poets
even while dying of reality.
Our life is that which it is not too.
Our bones are that father’s too
who never fathered us
and our flesh that mother’s too
who never carried us.
Our world is that city too where
we haven’t ever killed in street fights
but where still echoes pistol shots
in pallid, windless evenings.
Our time is that too which
never ticks for us
but still drag us along
to tomorrows that we don’t own.
We will never be those men,
live those lives,
walk those worlds
and see those times.
But they lurk somewhere -
perhaps in the backlands of our souls -
luring us like a dryad
all the while evading us forever.
