call it dialectal
call it duality

every day is an equal mix
of pleasure and pain
gratitude and awareness
and the agony of feeling it all at once

there is a wound clock in a lonely house
ticking with a tangled chain
when no one is there to wind it back
it slows to a stop
never to tick again

before our end of days
I hope each of us know what it’s like to love
and to hate
because how else would we feel love?

when the evening comes
will we feel remorse for what we haven’t had?
or gratitude for what we see before us?

if there’s both
you have lived a life worth knowing