Games In Your Head

Playing games in your head
Like hide-in-go-seek
Where you tell yourself lies
Then resolutely search them out
Hidden in musty corners or
Lurking behind slightly cracked doors
You tackle them and try to make the truth
Yours.

Or like tag
Where you chase down the dreams
Beat them into obedience
Bloody-pulp submission
Make them yours even if
They're not meant to be
Because you've always wanted them
So freakin' bad.

Simon says: someone tells you something
And you make yourself do it
Not because you want to
But because
If you're truly, deeply, cut-to-the-heart-of-it honest
You care too much about what they think
About you to not
Obey.

Playing games like a child
Concrete running and shadow chasing and
Sticky grape-jelly fingers and stubby-crayon sharing.
Except you've grown up and the games now
Aren't playground friendly.
They're harsh and they're brutal and they're
True.
Truer than you yourself would sometimes like to admit.