All the Difference (My Ode to Bryan & Colleen)

All the Difference (My Ode to Bryan & Colleen)

I heard them as I slept. They spoke in low voices but I could clearly hear. They spoke of their plans next. What they intended to do. It all sounded so normal... their grand plans. And I thought, "what is wrong with normal?" Everyone else does it....

They would eventually go back home. Familiarity is important to them. They would secure work that would end up as their careers, settle down, buy furniture, mow lawns, and eventually raise a family. But I thought to myself, "raise a family to what?" Where will you both take them? What will be their purpose? What is their cause besides the perpetuation you have begotten from your own parents?
And I thought of vanity. Hubris. The self satisfaction that goes with creating in one’s own image.

The difference between us is in the fucking. My fucking happens inside the head of the world. Their fucking takes place between thighs with cock and pussy in movement......But it is a short movement. It begets 9 months of growth before delivery. They will fawn. Attention will be heaped. Attention will die down. Life will go on. More furniture will be bought. Puzzles will be framed. Yearly vacations will come and go. Arguments will ensue. Boredom will settle in. Faith in family will keep them blinded. They will go on and on like they and theirs have always done. More fucking will occur, mostly from boredom and hubris. More images will be made. But It will not soften the blow. The whisper that life gives that they both refused to listen to will eat at him. He will sleep one day and wake up realizing that he once thought he heard something. He will not know if it was just in a dream. But it will bother him. It will fester while he drinks. When he sleeps. When he has those quiet moments of reflection we get in older age.

She will be impervious. She will repaint the walls for her difference. She will play with the children. She will be the oldest child among them.

His sore will grow. And his fear will grow with it. He will reason his children as his purpose: "You can’t understand unless you have a family". He gives it all up for them, yet gives them nothing. They will be as carbon copies of their parents. Except with differences in the details. Different house. Different paint on their walls. Different names for their children.

I will remember him as one who may have been willing at one time but whose fear held him in check. He may argue with me. But I know he is smart enough to know better.

Robert Frost wrote:
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

-L. Truman Daley-Douglas
Guest Contributor