I kept
Putting off
Life,
Until one day
It had
Passed me by.

A strange dance
Of circumstance
I jolt awake,
Revisit the quake
The scene of the crime
Where I made mine
The Great Refusal.

A smile, a thoughtful glance,
A meeting of eyes,
The slow emergence
Of a self.

Up all night, I'm in a funk,
Being quite sleepy's like being a bit drunk.
Stumble to a table, get my coffee, begin to write,
But hey, I'm still happy (yeah, who would've thunk?)

A wet machine encased in skin,
Eating, Pooping, Sleeping all day long.
I meant to describe my baby,
But am I any different?

I climbed aboard a train that took me
Further and faster
Than others on horseback.
Yet now I'm desperate:
The map is all wrong,
These stations I pass are those
I wanted most to avoid.
I want to change direction,
But see only miles and miles
Of straight track ahead.
Will there be another junction,
A crossing of tracks,
A way to reroute,
To change course?
Or is the only option
Derailment?

As we drift away, pulled
Apart by the centrifuge,
I wonder why the rope that was meant
To hold is together,
No longer does.
But I know why.
It stretched and twisted
And then, lacking care and
Attention, slowly
Frayed, until the rope was but
A few tenuous threads.
Seeing this we knew not to
Reverse what had happened.
We could have built a new rope,
There was still time;
But we chose to watch mutely
As each thread snapped in turn
And withered away.