The Faces: Electric Fence

I cannot take the warm and friendly faces

That I in turn will greet with smiling glow

And calculated social paces. I will dance this dance,

For what? There is a barrier to our closeness

That we will never breach.

I cannot take this happy toddler and her sticky chubby cheeks;

She tells me she loves me with reasons plentiful in garbled child speak.

Resignation stains the conversation; jokes are forced

And met with consternation. I can’t react the way I’d like.

I focus, instead, on the untucked hair that frizzes forth from your head

With no care to decorum, modesty; the little things we do to show

We know our worth:

Shirt tails out--

Jeans and sandals--

Forgotten details on display like internet handles clad in public privacy.

I hate that time is so little and wasted when I can’t cut straight

To the meat-- to the heart skipping along with this desire

to be your child

And kiss you sloppy sweet--

To hold your hand and listen, looking both ways

Down each street. I wish that we could meet.

I cannot take the chubby cheeks of little girls--

The grins I know will dim after lifetimes of knowledge

Begin to take and hurl these barriers anew.

I will get to watch and say how “finally she grew

Some sense” and feel the withdrawal of tiny hands

Careful not to touch this electric fence of distance we dispense.