The Removed Pages Poem by Vihanga Perera

Our lives are note pads, the
Kind on which we sketch with deliberate pen,
With refillable ink, with a pause for thought
Before a doodled smiley, now and then.

Even as this, our story, with a
Moral or two, a dance, a cliched climax at the end
Makes the wooded shelf, makes a modest fortune in sales,
As those pages at the margins refuse to bend,

We must put to some use the pages which we,
With reason, or the lack of it, keep back from editorial eye.
The days that never were, the moments that never saw
The persons whose fragrance, as it dissolved, that moved our sigh.

Such persons and such moments - bootlegged, unmarked,
Untaxed - complexities, smiles and tears,
That are genuine in them that they requested no showcase,
No pedestal, no pride, that they waned away with the years.

The stories we never tell. The people we shake our head
Horizontally against, so to keep what's truth vertical and round.
Who watch over us toast at our weddings, bereave the dead
And let a silent tear somewhere slide down to ground.