we keep a tab open, an item on the todo list, a reminder on a post-it, scribbled plans and goals in a notebook

waiting for the persona we wear, 

to play out,  reach a logical end, and stop for a while,

or just take a break, long enough, 

that we can take it off,  don another one -

one for whom the note was written, one that can

pick up that post-it, and make a poem, a story, go for a trek,  run that race

one that will learn that musical instrument..... one that can

sing that song of the soul,  midwife to the deep inner thoughts,

the soul at play, let out in the world, and 

do the things that keep us sane,  a small but divine circle, 

defining us by the promise of what's within

but,

sometimes the personas don't budge - the jobber, the family man,  

they do not relent

and the little bits of gaiety and colour that wash up at our lives' door,

wait forever in our external memory systems

like flowers pressed into a book, 

slowly desiccated 

till only remains 

but 

dull repeated words "he went to the office, he watched the kids" 

and dust of crumbled dreams