The Games We Played

Scissors, she said, cut through paper.
And dreams, thought I, dreams that are chased by sons and daughters under the old stone bridges and over the barren moon.
Dreams knitted into bright blue cardigans
And stars crochet right over their hearts
And gloves, sewn with expectations
As little hands struggle to write and learn to spell.

Paper covers rock
And dreams, I thought again, dreams of colours
And brushes and worlds of words.
Covered by paper heavier with years.
Reflecting my father's furrowed brow, his frown
My mother's eyes, her trembling hands
White shroud for their dreams.
Paper cuts on paper skin.

Rock smashes scissors.
And once again, no surprise, I think about my dreams.
Cracked by the hands that struck in anger.
Collected and stored in the back of my mind in boxes marked fragile
I remember my grandfather taught me how to deal with loss.
"Deal with the rock of my absence.
With no ground beneath your feet.
I shall leave with the smoke."
And the rock will make you bleed.
Scissors cut.

Paper covers.
Rock smashes.

And I?
I build. I construct.
The cement of my resolve poured over bricks of stardust from the bright blue cardigans.
Lined with the tiles on the bathroom floor, all the ones that weren't white.
A foundation of getting over hurt but not stewing in it.
Put up my words, my world on the walls of my home.
Cut through the rain.
Hold up my roof,
Hold up my head, hold up my own.
Rock.
Paper.
Scissors.
I have outlived them all.