A young girl, age seven
maybe eight
ran jovially through rain
splashing in every puddle as she moved
Her mom, trailing behind
smiles for her child, but her eyes betray her.
She is listless.
The world has a way of robbing us
of even the smallest moments.
Stress builds, we find ourselves trapped
underneath the mound, no longer
strong enough to free ourselves,
we succumb, not to the weight of the world,
but the weight of our own worlds
with all of their problems and “little” urgencies.
We are struggling to free ourselves internally,
but our external forms must continue to move
and we go through the motions,
always pretending nothing is wrong
because it is shameful to let someone see us
as weak.
We bury ourselves within and
put on a social mask for our friends,
families, people we love but can’t let in.
And we slowly sink deeper and deeper
drowning in our own charade.
I love the honesty and truth in these words. I can feel the child’s joy and the mother’s increasing emotional distance and internal turmoil. It’s clever how you bring these two pictures together to create the third picture of how this mother and child depiction is common to us all. 💓