Young Bill

 

I talk to your star, every once in a while.

I don't know if you hear me, or if you

are there at all, but I do know that you are

in my heart when I need to call.

And you probably think it's fanciful,

like me, you didn't see organised religion

as an answer, but did you hear

the universe singing at all?

 

Because I still get unsure, I still feel doubt,

I still don't know if I'm doing it all right.

I still feel alien in my skin,

malfunctioning in my brain,

and a slight pain in the hip

when I stand in the rain.

 

But I think you would

have been proud of the man I became,

or am becoming, because this growth is ongoing.

And maybe, you would have had a better insight

into who I was, and the world I was forming.

Why I didn't fit into the same boxes as you.

Why I could never have been just a clone of you,

following the same 9-to-5 drone of life,

when my mind can't connect

those threads half the time.

 

They used to call me 'young Bill'.

 

A falling cascade of Polaroid

faces flood my mind - 'the worker'.

'The father'. 'The cartoonist'. 'The thinker'. 'The smile

that just sat, content'.

 

And I question silently, were we more similar

than we seemed?

 

Did you have a slightly miswired brain?

Did you see the magic

in the way the flowers swayed?

Or the way the rain bursts as it falls

on your cheeks in a sweet embrace?

 

And whilst I see it now in my face,

I also see that I couldn't ever be

a replacement, or a placeholder.

 

And one last Polaroid falls across my eyes:

'The poet'.

 

I am a different being, and as I grow older

I know that my path was never meant to

reach the same destination, but maybe

that was ultimately the way destiny was

bent into shape by your creative mind.

You dreamed big, but the world wouldn't let you soar.

Well, I roar back that I dream bigger, and I won't

be pushed onto a factory floor

and stamped under those heavy boots.

 

I am more.

 

I'd rather be a torch holder

shining down on everyone,

beaming with joy when they

show the world the love inherent in them.

Or when they point out the unjust, the people

that cause distrust, the ones that hurt

and those faded stories of dust.

And I think you would have seen the magic.

For I know I saw in your eyes

a glint when you glanced at the starlight,

and song was never far from your lips.

You just came from a different generation,

where they never saw the beauty in difference.

 

I'll put a record on for you,

some Motown numbers

as I glance up at your star.

And I'll let my feet move in dance,

for I think of you every day,

and every night as I watch the sky.

And the starlight will glisten

in my teardrop eyes,

as those heavenly lights listen

to my silent cries.