The Narrow Road Ahead
Strangers before we were born
we throw sadness to the winds the disappointments become empty comedy
the thorns of existence are par for the course
always we are somebody else’s baby, strangers before we were born
this is 42, same as when I was 7, a stranger before I was born, astride two lives, two skins, two names, two families, estranged to both, stranger before I was born
norms we flout not of our own choosing no more than apples pick which hand shall pluck them, or whose knife shall peel them
laws we break in our own way, custom’s codes, etiquette’s rules, falling in nature’s own style
it is out of my hands, out of your hands too, the road was laid out before we got here
my hands were etched with exactly which forks I’d take it didn’t take a fortune-teller to see that failure lay ahead
the dread in my face was an open book of the horror farce I was destined for
what was the doctor’s thought when he coldly cut the cord and gave me life’s first rude shock fresh out of the cozy bardo that late autumn night in south San Francisco?
did he whisper under his breath that the game’s not worth the candle?
always we are somebody else’s baby, a stranger before we were born
you were no different, a fish out of water, following the path assigned to you
first in China, next Taiwan, then in New Zealand, from monkey bars to ballet barre, to a solo seal in London
but you buried that dream with an iron hammer and a law degree, only to end up in the slow death throes of a bureaucracy, your head perpetually bent beneath the bamboo ceiling, in a land that sees China as a threat, as the eternal Orwellian other
they call it a democracy, the land of the fair go, and the official who gave us our citizenship certificate didn’t even wink to warn us this fairness might be a big joke
and so here we are, each exiled, both baffled, slowly declining together by nature’s own hand, in her peculiar style —
we are strangers again, just as we were before we were born.
© Carlo Zeno 2023
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Thank you for reading, and thank you to Franco Amati for considering this poem for his pub. Here are two recent pieces below 🙏
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