Invisible As A Child

The grownups had raised themselves

and left us to our own devices - they

survived by working hard and never

realized they had a younger son

 

We grew up in pairs - two older sons,

twin sisters; then the lonely youngest

son, isolated and forgotten since his

existence never registered with his

 

Four siblings - the parents caught in

chronic fights didn’t know that he was

there, didn’t care that he nearly died

for lack of love - and now it’s done

 

He followed them into the afterlife; his

wife and kids, loving and kind, never

healed the shock of the experience

of being invisible as a child

My little brother died of invisibility,

killed by blindness, we barely knew

ourselves so couldn’t acknowledge

existence living in existential crisis

 

Attila the Hun was fixing cars, Peter Pan

was playing with the fairies, the Duchess

fighting interminable wars, Alice reading

while growing and shrinking herself

 

Grandma Cinderella served everyone,

Conan growled, the Queen of Hearts

dreaming of music and playing Liszt

and Chopin on piano, we all shared

 

Music all the time - Mantovani playing

Mozart & Brahms, all borne aloft in a

musical fog, little brother played trumpet

the sisters sang duets, no-one noticed

 

This blindness was destroying him...