THE THINKS THAT WE THOUGHT …

In honor of society’s most recent “cancelee” (Doctor Seuss), on his birthday, I thought I’d jot down some thoughts in rhyme …

It started well-meaning; pure-hearted enough

just to clean up the flagrant, mean-spirited stuff 

All the frowns and turned noses, every soul-crushing word 

In the sees that we saw and the hears that we heard

We wanted inclusion, in this great game of life

every daughter and son – every husband and wife

No one should be banished, alone or left out

that is certainly not what this game is about

We should all have the rights to jump ropes and fly kites

and we all should be safe in the days and the nights

And no one would argue those points to the herd

in the sees that we saw or the hears that we heard 

So our actions were judged and pure justice was sought 

the only thing left was the thinks that we thought 

But then there were hisbands and hersbands onesbands 

themsbands and thosebands and somesbands and nonesbands 

And we didn’t know how to just talk to the new

so we banned everything that might make them feel blue

We tied up with law all the teaches we taught  

and monitored all of the thinks that we thought

But then there were colors and sizes and shapes

of those who ate pheasants and those who ate grapes

And short ones and tall ones and big ones and small ones

And those without shoes and those without clues 

And some who might win and some who might lose

We could never allow such a thing on the news 

So Facepalm and Twunder all fearfully fought

to keep tabs on the dangerous thinks that we thought 

We shut out the guilty who fell out of line

Didn’t give them a chance to appeal or opine 

If gruff or unfit

they were done – that was it!

We could not afford to have people among us 

who grew their own thinkers and spread like a fungus

The bold and the different couldn’t be sold or bought

so we set out to change all the thinks that we thought

We burned all the books and replaced all the meanings

and raised up our eyebrows at wrong-sided leanings

There was but one way to smile and to sway

and if you didn’t do it, well then you couldn’t stay

You had to be sent to the nowhere of none

cause you can’t act too twosey when protecting just one 

No triggers, no trolls, no truth-seeking souls

were allowed to be hurled into this new world

Because talking might end in a foe or a friend

and realness just hurts when you’re playing pretend

So we stood straight and acted just as we aught

so we wouldn’t be hurt for the thinks that we thought

But one day, while keeping our battered heads down,

one of us looked up…and then looked around

And saw the new world in a desolate state

with nobody left to control or berate

All the ideas had gone silent and cold

no one was boisterous and no one was bold

Compliant and small, we did what we were told

And we didn’t laugh laughs and we didn’t tell tells 

we didn’t cry cries and we didn’t yell yells

We were too scared to run and too scared to walk

too scared to sing and too scared to talk

And the thing that we’d simply set out to just fix

had turned back into hatred and banning and bricks

In trying to lift and inspire and include,

we’d become just as rigid and grown just as rude

as we were at the start – with our first change of heart

We’d just found different targets…with the same attitude 

And we longed for the time when we could just be

and have conversations for real and for free

Without the strict boundaries and all the insistence 

and no threats of losing our very existence 

So we grieved all the things we had looted and lost

and hung our heads low at all it had cost

And we wished that our world had never been caught 

trying to end all the thinks that we thought … 

R

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