Failure
When all else fails,
There's always that one final fallback position,
The spirit's last bastion, its safety net: death.
When things get so bleak, desperate,
That life loses its luster, its swift kick in the butt,
Lacks even the status of third-class citizenship,
One can, with the slightest bit of beginner's luck,
Take the necessary steps
Toward requisitioning the basic components.
After all, how difficult can it really be,
Finding escape routes, trapdoors,
Taking the proverbial hike, buying the farm?
Needless to say, that's a rhetorical question
Which I'm too highly well qualified
Not to answer, in my own good time.
For days, months, I've pondered the outcome,
Weighed the ad hoc pros and cons,
Meditated on the best stratagems.
And don't think I've not studied demises —
Aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, parents —
To facilitate taking my failure away.
When you're feeling low, in the town dumps,
And there's no other recourse
But to let the black crows have their way,
Peck what's left of your ravaged soul,
All you can do is submit.
It's then, only then, that the end commences,
Thoughts of calling it quits really set in,
Convince you that the right decision
Is to terminate the journey.
Suddenly, you sense what you have to do:
Go home, get in bed, naked,
And, with a sigh of relief, bite down on death.
07/02/08 - (2)
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