Escape

Say your father and mother
come home one night,
and they are particularly drunk;
so they neglect to censor their opinions of each other.
And you shield your little brothers ears
with the palm of your hands.
Or turn up the volume on the TV,
let him race along a virtual screen until
his hands have stopped shaking.
The video game erases the only
instability he’s ever known;
the virtual car’s engine ticks like a bomb,
splinters the illusion of how life should be.

But this little boy doesn’t have the choice
his fingers wouldn’t know how to grip a control;
or what it was used for, or even how children
in other parts of the world have so much time for fun.
Because before now his only escape from the on-going war
is to fly a kite and wish in his prayers before night-fall,
that he could collapse his body and fill it with air.
Speed across the horizon and see something new.