Assorted Heroic Words: Sandman

a mythical person supposed to make children sleepy

Marty gained a younger sibling
late enough
so that he could understand
how difficult
it actually is
to get small children
to fall asleep.

It's one of those paradoxes
where no matter how easy
it becomes
to fall asleep
when you're older,
it appears to be the very last thing
you want
early in life,
as if it's tantamount
to the end of the world
(and I guess it might as well be)
to be caught dead sleeping.

That's a little
of what Marty thought,
eventually,
about being a superhero,
and maybe about
good & evil,
and how people decide
which one to be,
the extreme reluctance
to be good
and the sudden ease
to be evil,
a reverse
of how it's usually thought
to be.