Only
 
Don’t say I’m only playing with empty boxes,
they are mine to be filled by me and me alone.
I began as somebody waiting for somebody else
but when they never arrived I became everybody.
Thinking back to earlier times, nobody was spoilt
as I happily lost to toys at those monopoly games.
Parent time was shared, making it mine and theirs
until my time grew older and their time ran out.
I’m everybody else’s nobody until they need somebody,
I could almost be anybody, though I’m mostly unseen.
A nobody who is everybody and sometimes somebody,
expanding to fill the spaces long since unshared.
I find the smaller spaces in everybody else’s time,
sometimes only, sometimes not. Let’s just say that.

Susan Wilson

 
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Susan Wilson would be pleased to hear them