The Value of Life

Good times keep me going

Bad times keep me growing

Uncertainty keeps me entertained

Karma keeps me chained

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Love walks me with God

Hate marks me a fraud

Euphoria tempts with false sights

Suffering makes my stand right

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History makes me wonder who wrote it

Debate makes me challenge the partisans who quote it

Geography makes me question the borders

And those, behind them, issuing orders

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Language makes me human

Between the lines, read, acumen

Deceit is the currency of the world

Life a flag, at half-mast, unfurled

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Had it been better had I not been born

And dodged the pain from my crown of thorns?

Is it better to go-and-grow from times good-and-bad

Than to wonder, not, from a life not had?

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I am spewed into the world

Uninvited, unwelcomed, and hurled

Come what may, it's mine to be

Being alive makes up for what life does to me

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Inspired by Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses: “The fact of being alive compensated for what life did to one.”