Fantastic family elastic
It gets pulled many ways
By the minute and the drastic
By those revelation days,
By the breaking through of truth
Or the vibrancy of youth,
By the presence of a ghost
Or an absence, needed most.

You must forgive your parents
For everything they dreamt.
You must forgive yourself
For failing to fulfil
The dreams they held until
You woke them up with crying
And sleeping not enough,
With finding things confusing,
All blurry edged and smudged;
For being full of doubt
And fear,
For never seeing straight
Or clear,
Nor being too well judged;

For the pain you thought
You brought them
And the pain that thought
Brought you.
You must forgive your parents
For all those things they do
As they, in turn, remain
Caught in their love for you.

So remember the elastic
You can stretch it all you like
From the cellar to the attic
From the hilltop to the lake,
But you cannot break the fabric
You cannot dislocate,
The elastic is fantastic
So give up trying to escape.