A Boy’s Belief

There once was a boy who believed he was bad. No one ever told him he could just be sad. All of his emotions became balled up and stuck; glued together in a big pile of muck. 

These mucked up emotions couldn’t move much. They could only come out in one way, maybe two. The little boy was left with hurting himself and others too. 

The only companions he had; confusion and self-hate. What else was he to believe when even the gods who created him turned their own faces from the boy in shame and hid him away. 

The boy grew up in this world of hide and non-seeking. He was taught sealed, quiet smiles were the price of peace. Even if his lips wanted to turn down in a frown. Keep it up! The gods demanded this law written on the boy’s heart turning the beating flesh to cold stone. 

The boy grew and grew as confusion took root and self-hate covered all like a house lost in vines; from the ceiling to the mirrors, the walls and the doors are all one color. Even the floors were covered with grime, every footstep revealed in the slime. Soon the boy saw there was no escape. The gods had lied. There was no quiet deafening enough, no smile crooked enough to produce the promised peace. 

The gods wanted the boy stiff, stoney, unbending; a prize on the mantle. The boy didn’t want the dusty shelf and yearned for unpaved fields, so he stopped purchasing the mendacious law. He took out his tablet heart and broke it upon the deep, ancient intelligent recycler of life. Fleshed poured out of that used, stoney heart; truth revealed in rich blood spilt. 

The blood told the truth, the boy was not bad, just human. He had been directed down crooked paths. He was taught to read upside down books and stand on slippery slides so the gods would always be needed. No one taught the boy to build sturdy ladders and climb. 

The boy could clearly see looking down at the broken, granite heart; he was never a mutant, just a boy misidentified as a thing. All the boy needed was a little bit of time and effort and truth; some clear skies and clean water and rich soil.  Mix that all with curiosity and courage, maybe the boy would have spied the ocean in his own eyes and the nature growing in his smile that spread upward to the colored spirals. Maybe the boy would have a different title.  

Lucky for this boy there is still breath flowing deep and a little seed of gratitude to keep. There is a wide open field with no paths yet tread; no sign written, no stones engraved. Just worlds and dreams and possibilities waiting to be built.