Crossings

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.