So began the lives of two
As small and fragile birds
Struggling with wings so frail
Two eggs hatching on the same day in different nests
Two lives so vastly different diverging upon each other
One living a directionless life of wasted effort
The other struggling with infirmities to rise above
Two mothers passing in the market
Two families growing always close by
Two children, one dependent, one independent
One child grows out, one child grows in
One strengthened in body captive in spirit
One captive by her body grows strong of spirit
Occasionally passing, crossing paths
Just enough to know the other exists
One struggles with identity, who he will be
The other struggles with life, knowing who, but not how long
He grows rough and sometimes unabated
She grows sheltered and sometimes feeling smothered
Both, on a path to cross, which will change them forever
His life is spent out on the cold streets always looking in
His crimes are petty and go mostly unnoticed
His mother hears the word ‘incorrigible’ more than once
In the cracks of society, there are always those to find you
Always those there to rally to your rebellion
His story is told countless times in countless lives
Written on dockets
His photos will eventually go into his ‘jacket’
To pass from worker to worker,
Lawyer to lawyer, Judge to Judge
Her life is more inside the warmth always looking out
Her spirit yearns to go places her body does not allow
The coldness she knows are rooms surrounded by white
There are doctors, nurses, and technicians
There are specialists waiting at the next phase
She hears the whispered word ‘terminal’ if she listens
Even in a world built on hope, there are cracks
However, in these cracks,
You are often alone with your rebellion
Her story is told countless times in countless lives
Written on charts
Her photos of inside, will go into her records
To be passed from worker to worker,
Doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital
Against the odds, he is converging on adulthood
The petty and juvenile will give way to hard crime
He will soon move into the big leagues
Against all odds, she is converging on adulthood
The decisions will soon become hers
And her weariness and frailty moves her
Still, there is one more crossing ahead
The stories we remember best rarely go as we plan
It is right when it should be wrong
It is wrong when it should be right
Two people were going to die that night
One in the final blaze of a misspent life
The other in a final act of independence
Two paths with a common beginning
Two paths with a simultaneous ending
Two paths with one more crossing
The police report was short of details
A boy on the brink of becoming a man
Whether it was his idea to be there was moot
It didn’t alter the tragedy of the outcome
A young lady with her whole life ahead of her
It had to be a “wrong place, wrong time” situation
The document used words like ‘perp’ and ‘victim’
Assumptions made throughout a work of fiction
There was an unregistered firearm involved
Shots were fired and the police rightfully responded
One was a victim of cataclysmic circumstance
The other following a chosen path to an end
Which was which only they know
Two souls came together in a blaze
In each other’s arms
Redemption and resolution
He has found his purpose
She has found her peace
Two mothers will cry tonight
© Ron Simpson Jr.
