Morning Rain

You take me back
to the song I forgot
A Long Time Ago,
Because
It reminded me of life as it was and
Not as it is.

ALongTimeAgo,
Of rainy mornings in school
When we jumped in muddy puddles
Linking arms and
Screaming in mock fear of
getting our clothes dirty
Even though
The water was already in our shoes,
Even though
We had already been caught.

ALongTimeAgo
When we played silly games which
only gave us
a Scraped knee
or a Bruised elbow and
and we had to grit our teeth when they
Cleaned our wounds with funny smelling anti-septic,
Because we Could Not
Would Not
Should Not
Cry.

So much better than the wounded egos
and broken hearts replacing the
"Injuries" from our careless childish frolicking
That used to split our skins but
Not our souls and could be
forgotten with some ice cream.

Funny how they
ceased to
Tell us in their grown up voices that
Big Girls Don't Cry
when we stopped playing in mud.
Dabbling instead, in love
And they let us curl up in
Foetal positions and nurse the wounds
No anti septic could clean,
And shed the tears no ice cream would stop.