We build our histories

We build our histories

Formalise our structures

The past we give ourselves

So contingent on our opinion

The heft of self-delusion

The weight of our decisions

The baring of the soul

In moments of true reflection

The way our lives are seen

In your eyes, in mine

Through a lens of self-discovery,

If such a journey was ever to be made

When paths were never clearly laid

So easily fallen by the wayside

Running with the pigs

Snuffling for truffles in the undergrowth

Laying waste to cultivation

Behaving as an animal,

That would be a beast

Lurking beneath a veneer of urbanity

Using the defence of instinct

To mitigate primal need,

Tipping the scales in a blindfold

Tell yourself you are better

Than you were

Become more of a sophisticate

With every passing day

As if to pretend you were never there,

An earlier, uncivil version

Of yourself should be forgot

In the overcoming,

The development of self-consciousness

As a tool to be turned against the past

Well-sculpted, preserved in formaldehyde

We, who would be artists and creators

Of our own stories

What we hold on to when the dust settles

How we choose to remember

What we try so hard to forget

The destruction of innocence

A tabla-rasa

Overlaid with false idols

Brazen images of a lesser god

Praising the past as much as it is despised

Blaming the passage of time for the predicament

Of being wary of change

When the pain of reflection is too great

To be ignored

Live in denial

Yet another accidental gift of evolution

We, who might be human

Blessed to be something more

Than just another animal

At the mercy of our most base and wretched instincts

Waiting to be born