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Title: audio When Santa Claus Was Real
Author: Codey Narrator: Blue Ben W.
Kind: Poem Type: MP3 Time: 00:02:37 Size: 3.60 MB

When Santa Claus Was Real

a poem by codey

  1. There was a time, not so long ago,
  2. when my days were filled with play.
  3. Firetrucks, frisbees and basketball,
  4. and a lawn sprinkler on a hot day.
  5. Wrestling matches and brier patches
  6. left me scraped, scratched and bruised.
  7. I wore proudly, as badges of honor,
  8. each new band-aid my mother used.
  9. Tho the pain was real from these injuries,
  10. I seldom needed a drug.
  11. The pain was eased by my mothers love,
  12. along with a kiss and a hug.
  13.  
  14. At five, I headed off to school
  15. with scrubbed face and gap toothed smile.
  16. Wearing my innocence on my sleeve,
  17. sporting clothes of the latest style.
  18. With the barely controlled eagerness
  19. of youthful impatience to learn and age,
  20. I was sure I'd soon know everything
  21. but was assigned my own little cage.
  22. Judged and categorized by others,
  23. I was grouped where they thought I belonged.
  24. I innocently accepted these labels,
  25. not realizing how I'd been wronged.
  26.  
  27. Now, older and much wiser,
  28. I see with the eyes of a youth.
  29. I'm now more able to discern
  30. what's said but what's the truth.
  31. The cruelty of a child is open,
  32. the cruelty of the old less revealed.
  33. The young not having learned to speak
  34. in a way with true meanings concealed.
  35. Why can't those of us labeled different
  36. just be a different kind of same?
  37. Why, for being how we were made,
  38. should we hang our heads in shame?
  39.  
  40. Now living the life I've been given,
  41. despair feeding distrust and ire,
  42. and the eating away of my soul
  43. by unquenchable internal fire,
  44. leaves me wondering if those called normal
  45. aren't just following a piper's refrain
  46. and those of us, unquestionably mad,
  47. aren't the only ones truly sane.
  48. The days are long gone when a kiss and a hug
  49. were all it took to heal.
  50. I'd give all I have to go back in time
  51. to when Santa Claus was still real.