it's not that we've forgotten, but that we never knew. 
we have to hear to understand; but when we had that chance 
words dripped from us like rainclouds, and 
listening was a thing we only did when forced. 
but the old ones smiled then, knowing our limitations 
were the same ones they themselves had lived with, 
and how lack of hearing turns people into images, 
images into simple patterns, 
and patterns into the types of bright stories better called 

lies