Walls Within Walls

Verse

Walls Within Walls

For most of us

the construction began in early childhood,

an intuitive defense mechanism,

to cope with being deemed too short or too tall,

too bright or too dim, too cute or too plain, too

large or too small.

Tools of the trade,

employed by parents, siblings and playmates,

were both inherited and fabricated,

as needs arose, and mandated to install 

protective foundations, so ordained as our

walls within walls.

With only a

few strong souls brave enough to venture beyond

the barriers, the construction continued

for the rest of us as defined social cures

required to justify perceived shortcomings

in our structures.

Must we follow 

those who conceived the earliest prototypes,

commissioned the plans, dictated the dogmas 

that stifled our light? Or can’t we embrace flaws

in the perfectly imperfect so we might

tear down the walls?