Life is a no-win situation,
at least when, wrapped in a blanket, wearing two cardigans, I fight
the cold and my own words.
At first, I didn’t mean the inevitability of death
(mortality is actually a silver lining so few can appreciate),
but our innate, boredom-inducing insatiability—the mother of all vices,
or at least many of them.
But then the Irishman said, ‘Something will be mine wherever I am,’
and it struck me that after all these years and places,
one thing has never left me—my guilt.
I’ve come to the conclusion that slowly dying is too demanding a job
to make room for other pointless pursuits, like memorising new words
or ever-so-slightly changing faces, which of course leaves me no choice
but to outsource all the embellishments that are commonly considered
life’s essential ingredients—though it’s not as if I don’t appreciate
an occasional reminder that the regrets we draw from the callow years
are not what stimulate our due desires—and embrace the humble life
of an urban hermit with somewhat perverted interest in death.
hidden pilcrow 