Decorum

 

Decorum’s of the essence, it’s something we achieve

Somehow we behave, leading others to believe

Within lies all experience, many years of knowing

From outside all seems well, until the thought starts flowing

 

Conforming to the usual ties, of language, sign and meaning

But lost inside the cavern, of a mind overtly teaming

-Stay quiet and be still, do not speak until your cue

Who knows we’re oh so fragile, but an ‘I’ that looks at you?

 

Keeping to the norm, to the everyday, what’s true

Will mean years of confiding, but only in the few -

Or no-one, trusting nobody, but an unrestricted force

That thing that stays inside, as each day hides remorse

 

Without comfort, solace, hope, or re-invented dream

Those ways you can become once more, pursuing the serene

We’d surely have no manners, could not hold back the years -

we spent detained elsewhere, by the deepest set of fears

 

If we don’t grasp the common err, which simply bears no name

We only know the precepts, the stigma and the shame

And replicate by silence, the state of malcontent

Perhaps we can encourage, others not to repent -

 

Of things we share in common, of confusion now and then

Mistaken that you are unique; if only you knew when -

to say what seems unusual, to civility ensouled

In the mix of fellow beings, where stories should be told