Clay and water make sticky fingers. I think, that this was the knowledge in which I was not taught by the teachers in my kindergarten class. The first lesson in which I was able to call mine, in which I was able to mold, and in which I was able to create. But now I’ve exchanged that clay for glass. The horrendous smell, the disgusting feel and the grime left on my fingers after, I’ve exchanged now for a delicate glass bottle. A glass bottle that can break with a small tip of my fingers.
I used to live inside this clay. The mess and the slop surrounding me creating my everyday environment. This goes for the rest of us, of course, for only few with a tender age of five could make such a barter. A smart barter. Yet such a stupid barter.
I did not exchange my clay when asked because I found no reason to. I had my life in my fingers and all I had to do was mold it. With the flexes of a few muscles I can create something new, something exciting, something mine. What could I have done with a glass bottle? Sit in it all day?
But, my dear friends, when that stage of life had hit me, just like it had hit all of you, I had inconspicuously traded in my clay, my oh so precious clay, for a beautiful glass bottle. And that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m sitting in it.
As much as I want to scream and shout, kicking unwillingly the people who dragged me in I can’t. I dragged myself in. As much as I want to break the glass surrounding me, I can’t. And as much as I would love to escape, even just for a moment, the confines of my new prison, I can’t.
The childhood innocence and logic that was so clear to us back then, is gone. Through the years we’ve gained knowledge, worth, individuality but have we really?
What is worth, what is knowledge, and what is individuality.
People stare at me everyday because I sit there, inside of a beautiful glass bottle. That is my worth.
I see things happen because of the transparent walls letting in sunlight and happenings of reality. That is my knowledge.
I am alone, and I have morphed my character along the concave pilars of gleam next to me. That is my individuality.
But like me, you are too. You are also in a beautiful glass bottle. You had also made the exchange and you are also in grief. There is no one who now has clay because the choice was never ours, it was simply pressed upon us.
So we sit there.
For as much as we to break the glass surrounding us, we know we can’t.
Responsibilities, obligations, and burdens sink their ways into us, little by little and we will be forever, trapped within that beautiful glass bottle.
We can never have our clay back.
We can’t