Roundabouts

We create roundabouts for ourselves:

A game of snakes and ladders, you climb

Rung by slippery, spiky rung, and slide

All the way down, laughing, hiding your

Face because who wants to see the

Failure you feel? I smashed teeth on that

See-saw, I thought it was a joke until

It wasn’t anymore. A playground you say?

It was a play. A ground for an act or five,

But I bled out of the grass boundaries,

Soaking the tepid mud, footprints marking

My betrayal, my need to cross lines, smash bridges.

The roundabout won’t go anywhere, double

Vision is an illusion, the slide is only a

Second of fun for three minutes of labor.

I slip on the climbing frame, the ground

So much further than reality, a tumble.

My playground a prison, an obstacle course

Of boring trepidation, unhealthy dances on the beam;

Balance, one step in front of the other.

The deep forest a dark suitor, attractive

Hands curled around my wrist, pulling

Me away. We create roundabouts

For ourselves; we conform, copy, pledge, and

Then we bleed out, run, slip away,

And you wonder why we never thought

To unclip these wings before they were

Ever clipped in the first place.