Can’t Stand It [REV.]

The little alien at the controls in my head
still reads children’s books as if these are
truth, sharing in characters’ experiences;
such as eating warm, buttered toast and 

Plum pudding - in contrast with the hunger
suffered by the poor like the girl with
bent legs who was fed only flour & water,
no milk, shocking me into craving food

Fearing disaster; reading about poverty in
19th century England with young children
working in noisy cotton mills which made
a sensitive character burst into tears upon

witnessing it, then dying in a nursery fire –
it makes all life seem drab:  - these scary
books should have age restrictions; it can’t
be good for kids to read such awful stories

Real life should be censored also when the
little alien looks at newspaper accounts of
the painful lives of abused children - life is
too harsh for humans, the question is –

How DO we stand it? – The answer lies in
over-crowded prisons & mental Institutions
which prove we can’t stand it at all…