This Was My Lie, Tell Me Yours

When I was growing up, it was de rigueur
to teach children to accept being deceived
about what sex was by adults who believed
that sex = lies so arguing they were different
was pointless. Teaching children to be grateful
for being fed lies was all that parents could hope for.

Children would make their own journey
through a world that was divided by deceit 
the way that generations before them had

until how they lied became their own lore,
to be nurtured behind their own front door.

That their parents were the first to teach
the necessity of deceit because they owned
the front door that the child hid behind
would be the last lesson they had to endure.

If any child got that far into being an adult,
that they wanted to end the age-old cycle of lies
by omission, they would have had to learn
to omit to have children they had to lie before.