DEMONS AND ANGELS

EXPIRY DATE

My childhood didn't come

With an expiry date or a

Sticker stamp of "best before"

So I'm not quite sure

When it's supposed to end

Does it continue

Until I'm eighteen, an "official" adult?

But no,

That seems far too technical

For something

As physical as childhood

AND BESIDES, 

I DON'T QUITE FEEL LIKE A CHILD AND

I HAVEN'T FELT LIKE ONE FOR A LONG WHILE 

SO THAT MUST MEAN

THAT MY CHILDHOOD IS OVER.

So when did I stop being a child?

Was it when I woke up 

With red

Between my legs

But no,

That seems far too physical

To be the benchmark

For something so emotional as childhood

SO DID IT END WHEN I

STARTED CRYING MYSELF TO SLEEP EVERY NIGHT

OR WHEN I STOPPED BEING ABLE TO SLEEP ALTOGETHER

WITHOUT NEEDING THE ASSISTANCE

OF PILL BOTTLES

Did it end

When I stopped wishing you would come home

When I started hating you for leaving

When I stopped hating you

And started hating myself instead

For giving you incentive

Maybe you took my childhood with you

In that gray bag of yours,

(That you'd bring back from business trips, loaded with chocolates for me)

Maybe you took it with you,

In that gray bag of yours

To your new family

And your brand new life

With the red-ribbon wrapping still intact

Unlike this worn out life of ours

Which had obviously reached

It's expiry date

And was no longer fit for your consumption

But no, this seems far too emotional

To define something

As abstract

As childhood

So maybe my childhood departed

Not when I developed a permanent aversion

To the words

Father

Family

But when I discarded 

My previous assertion

That caffeine couldn't cure anything

Because after emptying

Countless cups of boiling black coffee down my throat

Without once complaining

About the bitterness

I NO LONGER FEEL

LIKE A CHILD

~from LUKEWARM by OCKTOPUSES