Really good

We would all like to be in one piece, but it takes nothing to make us fall into a thousand pieces. We pretend to be happy, to be fine, to know everything. We are fragile and inconsistent, big and fat, but made of nothing, just one word has the power to break us. We put thorns like roses so that animals don't eat us, until the color and scent disappear. We wake up with a start in the middle of the night, a giant hole in our belly, everything sleeps except us. We stare at the ceiling, no longer knowing that Heaven is behind it.

Children still don't know the story of the thorns, they are too full of truth to pretend. It's not enough for them to fill that void with things, to somehow pass the time. They try to keep the evil inside, but it comes out. The thorns come off, the protections fall off. The noise is too loud, the thoughts go too fast. The little heart beats hard, too hard. Fear comes out because they reach the point where they can no longer hold it in.

They tremble and cry, they sulk, they scream and bite, they writhe, they spit and push. They want to do it alone even when they will never be able to. They throw away their shoes in protest, they knock over their plates, they roll on the floor and they say terrible things to us. They chase away and beat even the people they love, until they collapse, exhausted. They are tiny but they get so agitated that it takes a brigade to stop them. We think about what we are doing wrong. But it is only fear. The one we all have, the one we keep inside.

Not being good enough. Good, beautiful, big, strong, special, important. The one that is difficult to say with words, because they are not enough or they do not come. And we would like to kill them when they stare
at a stupid detail. But that little thing to open or close, of one color instead of another, to put right side out or wrong side out, is much more. It is their deep need to really be okay, to be enough for us. They fill the ceiling with bright stars and before sleeping, at least for a while longer, they remember the Sky.

In the darkness of the night they hold a hand and their thoughts never stop going fast. They know that a kiss is enough to wake up the world.

They dream of finding tomorrow and always hearts big enough, arms so strong. Eyes always open that want them and look only at them.


Marco Grossetti
NP December 2024