Dysfunction

The moment I enter through the heavy iron gates,

I know.

I know that from this moment forth,

I am treading on eggshells,

That I am an unwelcome visitor,

Yanked here by the chains of obligation,

Driven by a sense of respect,

And comforted by the illusion of safety.

I feel the aura of a broken home,

Of a cracked window, of a drifting fault line.

I sit and I listen,

Carry out wish by wish, order by order,

Tackling one day after the other

As if nothing were different, but I know

The feeling that comes with knowing

What it means to be the pariah,

The big city mouse in a foreign mousehole,

Filled with mice who try their level best

To channel the country mouse, but in reality

Are just mice from another city. I know

The arrows I am expected to fend off,

Hurled at me from unexpected places.

Stare into the eyes of the dragon,

Walk in straight and succumb to swallowing,

Like the way the rivers are swallowed,

Are barricaded from escaping a dark underground,

Thus eat into the ground further and further and further

Until all hell breaks loose.

And I know of the acceptance I will never find,

And of that, I will never seek,

And of the belonging, I will never seek,

And thus never find, for after all,

Who would want consciously to belong

To a tribe of such dysfunction

Where words are the weapon,

Where doe eyes are hunted,

And targets gathered.

In an atmosphere like this, I know

And stand there a witness for the grandeur of it all,

So do the heavy iron gates.