Toothbrush Pen

 I grabbed my toothbrush,

thinking it was a pen.

It's a funny adult thing,

carrying a toothbrush

though everyday life.

While the trees go on,

playing shadow puppets on the ground

and little shadow leaves,

ride bigger shadow branches,

into battle.

And under this cool winter siege,

I remember being young

and thinking about the freedom

of dirty teeth.

The freedom when,

I could run my little tongue all day 

along their grubby veneer,

and nobody cared.

All that freedom.

And no one 

to tell me what to do with it.

Now I am an adult

and I carry my toothbrush,

back and forth,

back and forth,

to a job

that nobody cares

if I show up to.

Down a road

nobody cares,

if I take. 

And on I go,

rubbing my tongue

against the worlds grubby indifference,

and wondering;

 is this what freedom feels like? 

Everywhere to go,

everything to do

and all the knowledge 

of its crushing irrelevancy.

You do and you don't.

It comes and it goes.

Nothing but,

fluttering little morsels of passion

to lead me down

another dead end;

with a toothbrush for a pen.