Never too Late

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO HAVE A HAPPY CHILDHOOD
Little yellow badge. Pinned to my bag.
Mother didn't like that one. She railed.
She raved; It's not true!
Not true for her.
How can it be true for me?
She was angry and now I see
Hurt. But I never meant it like that.
Not pointed, at her, not with the unkindness of blame.
That just isn't like me.
Is it?

This tardy childhood; will it be one delicious soda stream?
Or in a thousand staccato moments?
Sharp and unrepentant,
Pretending. Imagining. Getting away with it.
Punctuating gloom and nine-to-five.
Punctuating the grown-up brave-face.
Punctuating council-tax gas water bill court fine final-final-final notices.
Punctuating stuffy serious airs with shrill ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

But she. She doesn't know staccato.
Hers is end-less
depress-ive cry-ing drink-ing long days and eve-nings ly-ing in bed sleep-ing it off.

Grey-like and unremitting.
Like lumpy mash. And flat lemonade.

I hadn't decided if the badge was really true. But I laughed out loud in the shop. Immediately taken in.

That rainbow shop has closed now. Amazon stole it's heart. The woman with the cerise dreadlocks went away with her amethysts and interesting books.
I wonder where.
I think about the incense and the jingling bells on the door.
I think about The Poet's Notebook. Also bought in there.

Called myself a poet! And then went and filled it with pointless prose that went nowhere;
Men that went somewhere;
Death that's always there.
More drivel and scrawl along those lines.
Never too late.
Is that really true?
Mother doesn't think so.
What does she know?