I didn't have the guts to be a rebel
All the counterculture called at me
Asking me to join
In living rooms with Goodwill couches
Owned by a friend of a friend of a friend
They reached out to me
Hands and hearts so open that they couldn't stop bleeding
Asking me to join them
To make what I felt
To do what I wanted
Regardless of whatever the rules said.
They asked me,

Passing the tokens of a shared insobriety
That sought out the essential truth beneath
A thousand and one layers of culture and biology and social pressure
That only ever manages to turn diamonds into coal

I don't have the testicular fortitude to forsake the gifts of my birthright
My middle-class hope
Of a sliver of land beholden to an HOA
Of a wife who loves me kind of and children that will hold me to an anachronistic social standard that will leave me wanting
But it could be mine
It could be a world of my own making
With love and joy and plenty
And the mediocrity and turmoil
That is essential to life whether it is good or bad
It could be mine

The true face of the world is violent
And life struggles unconditionally to enact it's will on a world
That has extinguished more species than are alive

We are mayflies in the cosmos waxing and waning
And no one cares
And no one guarantees that I will eat tomorrow
Let alone find love
Or persist in the presence of my ancestors.

I don't have the ***** to wager my little bits of happiness
Even if there is a slim chance to change a million minds or more
Call me a coward
Call me a pragmatist
In a century call me dead
Right now you can call me mostly happy
And I don't know if there is anything better