Anthology

1999

Individual

Unique

Separate

Independent

Words used as praise, as goals

As bites and claws

Tearing apart and building up

Contrasted by ideals

By conflict

By desires, left unexplained and unchallenged

Unbidden

Advice given without wonderment, offered freely

Without being asked

The line

Between self-expressed

And self-believed

And self-self

Jagged and carved into the mind

Crossing the corpus-callosum

Scars rent

Broken

And left unhealed

Unfixed

Ignored

So long as results are found

Are achieved

And expressed

Accolades

Won, and unwanted

Awards given, prizes earned

That were unasked, undemanded

A life created

For something else

For someone else

Who are we?

Perhaps the answer lies

Behind the next level,

The next promotion

The next bottle

The next pill

Or needle

Or drive

The next death

And shock back to life

Because of course

We're tenacious bastards

In the end