Youthful Innocence

We crave the youthful innocence of our loved ones.

That ignorant bliss of their true personalities.

As a child, they were simply the ones we loved.

As we grew however, we learned.

However, this knowledge would’ve rather been never attained.

We gained a view of the world that we didn’t possess before.

A darker view, that muddied and clouded that perfect image in our heads.

We realize the person in our heads existed but was not the whole scene.

We learned their views on things. Their views on people and their ways.

We learned their secrets. Pasts that they kept hidden. Acts committed. Words spoken.

We could compare it to standing close to a painting,

Admiring a certain aspect of it.

Maybe a particularly well drawn house, tree, or maybe a flower.

Our view is limited and in a smaller window though.

And as we aged, it’s as if we took a step back with each year.

We noticed more details on the painting now.

Stains, rips, then eventually the whole scene came into view.

That house so well drawn was amongst a warn torn battlefield.

The tree was amongst the last standing in a forest devastated by fire.

The flower was the last one standing amongst its dying brethren in a hellscape.

Seeing these paintings as what they truly were was frightening.

We would try to take steps closer back to the painting.

To narrow in on their nice details we admired so much as a child.

But the image never left, the imperfections now known will never leave our mind’s eye.

We only sat there and tried to reconcile it all. Tried desperately to overwrite the image.

Wishing for that youthful blind innocence once more that would carry us back to the love, we once felt for them.

We feel however, that it is lost.

We realize that the image had always been there.

We simply had not the frame of view to see it.

We ask for edits to be made, perhaps a touch up here and there.

We are met with anger and rage.

Venom is spit at us, ridicule and spite.

We simply wish for our view to return to us.

We know the view of ourselves may be muddied as well,

Though we are willing to acknowledge our flaws.

We see the cracks and peeling paints.

We see the edges beginning to curl up from the moisture accrued.

We realize however we are not the only ones who painted us.

We come to the realization that our imperfections were due to the original edit’s flaws.

The painting itself became a painter but instead of fixing the hellscape on their own canvas. Deciding to change the landscape to benefit their current work.

They spread it. Smearing their muddied paint onto our half of the canvas.

This became our fault somehow.

Their lack of desire to improve their own became our own burden on our painting, our own blemish repeatedly pointed out.

Even though we did not have control of the brush until much later on.

Now we are handed the brush and told to make sense of the canvas in front of us.

Some simply allow the brush to hit the floor, unable to comprehend the sight beholden to them.

They simply drop to their knees and accept what has been given and wallow in the scene.

Others don’t accept their canvas as it was painted by others. They snatch the brush away and get to work cropping the previous image from their own.

Choosing to edit vigorously, refusing to be a piece of the original work, they fix the errors tirelessly.

They acknowledge the faults and go to appraisers who help them find the flaws and how to fix them.

We step back and see our completed work and smile and are proud of it. We admire it.

Sure, there are a few flaws still there.

The slightly crooked roof on the house, the tree leaning a little to the left, flowers not fully bloomed.

We know now however, when the next canvas we paint steps back and looks upon our scene,

They will not wish for that youthful innocence.

As the image they see now in that limited view, will be the one they see in the years to come when they also take their steps back.

That’s the day we wait for and hope our edits were good.

Though if they notice some flaws we missed and point them out.

We will not lash out in anger.

We will try and see from their viewpoint and perhaps realize our canvas will always need editing.

We will listen to the criticism and use them to build and paint an even better image to be admired.

That youthful innocence will be replaced with the aged hand of a Michelangelo, and we will know peace.