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Where is this life headed?
I feel like I'm in the middle of the sea
Trying to find a shore,
Realizing there has to be something more
To this rather daft existence
Trying to find the meaning of your origin,
Feels nothing more than a burden
I'd rather live a little,
For dreams that often seem brittle
All these empty pages in my book
Waiting to be scribbled down
With stories galore
Maybe what I need to work on
Is an index for the book,
So I can head towards
where I want to look.
Fate can decide, I can ignore.
The never-ending urge to control where you are going rather than letting destiny make that decision for you.
Paras Jul 2020
This is my life's index,
plotted every point with precision
from birth, to when I used wax,
directory of every phase in incision.
Loathing salary & running from tax,
to every pity and doubtful decision
Riding bicycle, to using axe,
coming alive from great recession.
Days of reaching from phone to fax ,
using social media to show aggression,
Longest nights and tiny days to equinox
from avoiding people, to holding congression.
Brainstormed writing and printing docs
ideals failing timely, to quick successions,
from when we thought life came from Pandora's box ,
to realizing it was unworthy illusion.
once Horace reached
the mountain's
apex
he could go no further
on the lofty ascending
index

now he's perched
high and all
alone
wondering why he wanted
to be in such a rarefied
zone
E Townsend Feb 2016
Percentage of selfies on Instagram: 42
Estimated number of days until returning home to Seattle: 479
Portion of dreams that are actually nightmares from working at Mama’s Pizza: 2/3
Total value of Urban Outfitters clothes, accessories, decorations: $786.54
Likelihood of starting anything on Monday: 1/7
Decibels of hearing I've lost at birth: 62
In addition to 2.5 billion beats in a lifetime, when I see a sunset my heart roars: 1,000,000
Total years spent in hell (aka Texass): 16
Probability of rolling my eyes when I read a cliché: 1/1
Swipes of Chapstick per day: 53
Level of urgency to *** after holding it in a car outside of El Paso for two hours: 17/10
Accumulation of hearing aid batteries used in one year: 124
Time I stay awake to if I had coffee the afternoon before: 4 am
Projected cost of 10:23 pm Friday dinners of Peking’s daily special in one month: $40.33
Average number of minutes I spend angrily live tweeting about stupid Disney movies: 67/123
Date of which I made a promise that I'm still keeping, but she broke hers: January 2, 2010
My nonfiction class had an assignment where we had to model the Harper's Index with stats and facts about ourselves, and I really enjoyed this one

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