The Forgotten Song

The machine is hungry and expects to be fed

Do you remember that song?

Most little ones are encouraged to be

That cosmic symphony...

For a while anyway.

Remember the towering crowd

With wide-eyed grins?

They couldn’t get enough of our

Guilt-less love and innocence.

It was like rain to their withering souls.

Because children are such a joy you know,

Not because they try,

But because they are like little rainbows —

A natural event

Bridging earthly folks to

Some sense of heaven again.

When I was a child,

I decided early on

That I wouldn’t agree to the withering.

Oh, I was forgetful for a time,

But as if on cue

She sang me back to life —

Life as an overgrown,

Invisible child

That is.

Be careful what you ask for,

Heaven doesn’t always fit in

To the given world.

Somehow I’ve freed myself

From the busy cult,

But alas, I’m still in the shape

Of responsible adult.

The machine is hungry

And expects to be fed

By the grown-up ones.

Why should I be given the time

For such childish things,

As living a song

Or to remember what it’s like

To be natural

Again?

Time marches on,

The applause and the wide-eyed grins

Are gone.

My heart

Lost its audience

To the ‘realness’ of the world,

Nonetheless,

I am happy to hum,

Until She sings

Everyone,

Back to their senses again.

©EM Meyer 2020

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From the Author:
I found this poem as I continue curating pieces for the revival of my solo performance show. In 2012, I took an eight-week class and began shaping the project, but the timing wasn’t right. Now it has come back into view.

It was my dream all along — not simply to talk about myself or my very weird and lonely life, not just to describe being shoved out of consensus reality and into the void, but to trace the slow remembering that followed.

What I’m reaching for now is something larger than personal story: a way to invite people back toward the forgotten song in themselves — the part that was never meant to be traded away for belonging, approval, or survival.

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