Live Free, Die Old

To be who we are or what we wish to be?

To suffer with nature or grapple with change?

To wish for solace from our twisted minds?

To reach for the glimmering of a new day’s skies?

Whether or not to forgive the unforgivable,

Or to hold our grudges and biases until we die.

To hold our hands to the poor and open purses to beggars.

To be the old miserly Scrooge, whose uncaring never falters.

To distance ourselves from love because of the pain of the past,

Or to embrace the hope of a relationship that will last.

So many choices, conundrums, collusions and coercions,

So many fickle thoughts and fantasies in frivolity.

We ponder our positions and precious predispositions,

We suffer in silence in seclusion and soothe scars.

And in the middle of it all, life.

Life. Life. Life…death.

And in the middle of it all, death.

And after that? Why worry?

Worst case is you burn for an eternity, but everything becomes bearable with time.

Best case there is dark nothingness and you have no sense of time.

So why do we worry about the choices we make, the people we please,

Why do we worry what could have been or what will be?

In the middle of it all is what we know for certain,

And what we know is we only have this moment.

We only have this life, we only have this living realm.

After that? We do not know, so live-out

Your life’s best-case scenario.