...and then?

Fear flares like fire

fed a meal of hearty oak,

when I try to broach the day

and all that it holds.

What will happen if I open

the contents of my brain?

Will I discover something new,

or be rendered insane?

I keep it at arm’s length

giving me purpose for tomorrow.

I am so often without purpose,

I must hold on to just this.

/

But the days stretch longer

with the important things undone.

And I hold them in my mind

where they reside with perennial hum,

what could be, what could be,

if I step forward, will I see?

/

And what if I do exactly this, exactly that?

quell the insistence of my life,

silence the buzzing of the gnat?

What if I accomplish

everything I’m meant to do?

What’s left when the achievements

are all but trundled through?

at the end of a life both short and long.

/

I rot in company with the ideas

in my mind,

ideas never broached

nor weathered with time,

because I hid them away

under the ground like ore,

precious metals never mined,

thoughts never said,

things never done,

they all stayed in my head.

/

...and then?