It's All About Longer Arms - Feb 22 2025

 

It’s All About Longer Arms

Feb 22 2025 

When my big brother wanted to torment me

  —  either because it’s fun to tease

and I was an easy mark,

or I deserved it  —

he held me off

with a straight arm to my head

as I futilely flailed at him.

It would have looked cartoonish

if you’d been there.

It’s all about longer arms

and the pleasure we take in power.

But we’re older now

and have learned to punch up

not down.

Learned how unbecoming it is

to lord it over the weak

instead of resisting

the plutocrats and oppressors,

or even better

mocking them.

Kids fight.

They struggle with empathy.

They need to be civilized.

Or perhaps not,

if the state of civilization

is as imperfect as ours.

And while brotherly love sounds nice,

siblings also compete;

some animals even eat

their kin in the nest.

Fortunately, mine let me live,

and with time

the difference in age

has become negligible.

We fight with words, not arms.

Have learned to forgive

live and let live

admit defeat,

agree to disagree.

Our opinions, after all

don’t make a difference in the world.

He’s still bigger than me

and magnitudes more conservative.

While I still haven’t learned

that passive resistance

works better that flailing my fists.