No Tradebacks

When I was born, I WAS GOD.

I was God, and in those moments when I struggled

through sweat and screams and slipped into the cold hard hands

of this reality, I held EVERYTHING

everything

in

my tiny

clenched fists.

I was GOD and I held every question to every answer

every answer that has ever been questioned

eternal questions

internal answers

I whispered external

in sweet placental speech

                                             delivered into a world of pinky fingers.

I was GOD

born reciting bibles

proverbs texts and tablets

sermons and psalms

translating truth

speaking cosmology

in every dialect known to man

and some unknown

                                             And they taught me language

                                             with chin tickling fingers and funny faces

                                             goo goo ga ga  coochie coochie coo.

I was solving problems

converting mathematics to bone

physics to muscle

biology to blood

I was building intricate networks of

microfillament tinker toy neuro-electrical synapses

and they said

                                             oh isn't that cute!

I was red and yellow and black and white

and all shades of earth

and they held me in front of a mirror

pointed to my soft shallow shell

over and over

                         Thats you!

                                             Thats you!

until I could no longer recognize myself.

I defied gravity because I breathed magic

They grounded me

holding my hands, cooing

take a step

               take a step

when I was already leaping off the planet

leaving them all behind

I sat in the sun

feeling grass and dirt pulse

intimately conversing with trees and sky

discussing the developing universe

and the existential qualities of man

drinking rain and feasting on clouds

and they came along

scooped me up

brushed me off

scolded me

                                             Now look! 

You peed your pants!

                                            

You pooped your diaper!

I played with angels unicorns and dragons

made faces at gargoyles

My imaginary friends were ancestors

I danced with elves and faires through

fields of non-fiction BECAUSE THERE WAS

NO FICTION ONLY THE

TEXTURE

COLOR

SHAPE

FORMING

BEFORE MY NEWLY OPENED EYES

I was GOD!

and I TRADED IT ALL IN.

I traded it all in

I offered them every key to every past and every future

to every lock and chain

every shackle of every heart and  mind

incarcerated in this prison:

                                             

time

and they said

Now honey, don't play with those, you might lose them

taking them away

pressing into my hand a plastic reproduction

they believed opened all doors.

I gave them the mystery of immortality

they gave me superheroes and Scooby-Doo underwear.

I gave them future personified

they gave me a Big Wheel and a Brady Bunch lunchbox.

I gave them hope

they gave me history, I repeat

history, I repeat

this-story.

I gave them eternity

they gave me bedtime.

I traded it all in

                                            

No tradebacks.

I learned to see with my eyes

and all my imaginery friends disappeared     

(poof)

left me

became cold   

sculptured   

stone.

I was god

No tradebacks

But you know, I don't blame them.

don't hold it against them

don't judge them

I love them even more

because I KNOW THEY WERE GOD ONCE TOO

We are all

still

God.

and it is so easy learning to forget

so difficult this journey through life

grasping to remember