Life + 1

Life--hard and cursed and cruel

Mysoft--oblivious, and self-blundering

When they, two, meet and imbue the fuel

To send what's unburnt, self-wondering

.

The abyss of what-ifs and ashen what-nows

Seals me over with what-nots of why-me

I surmise that's just life in its fashion and how

I look up, when lowest, to ruin's ceiling so highly

.

What rises is a refusal to settle; a gumption:

To awaken, stir, deny conventional wisdom

Mitigate limitation, decry intentional assumption

That ablates stagnation, that I am formerly, viz., from

.

I tread new footsteps onto pitch-blackened past

Storm toward futures that beckon me in

Against paths of resistance, witch-patterned vast

To close the mighty doors where many begin

.

To live and to die--just to break even

Is the so-what of life that divides by zero

For an imaginary number, an unoccupied life to recede in

And subtraction stops short my well-meaning hero

.

Refusal is addition of wings that torque 'gainst the thick

The bulwarks of surrender, the mark of the beast

The dive, into the deep end, snaps angst's training stick

And rails affirmation against abiding the least

...