If I had nine lives
I would spend the first one hurting.
Blood would take the place of tears
And would stain my teeth red.
In my second life,
I would cry over what I’d done.
So much that the red in my tears
Would dissipate
In the salty rivers running down my face.
My third life, I would say sorry.
Travel to some house by a lake in the mountains,
Waste my time writing in the Great Outdoors.
Pen on paper would be my only companion.
Fourth life– I would wait.
For love, maybe.
For hope, perhaps.
I don’t rightly know what I would wait for.
But there must be something to wait for
Since everyone else is busy waiting.
The fifth life I would spend knitting.
The world will collapse around me
In war
And the peace that comes from it
And I could try to scream
And protest
But no one would listen.
So I would just knit
Until my fingers tremble too much
And I slump over in my living room.
My sixth life would be mine.
No one would be around for it
So I would do whatever the hell I wanted.
Same for my seventh.
And eighth.
And in my last life I would–
I don’t know.
Be.
But I only have my life.
One life.
That one.
So I guess I’ll just spend it
Hurting and saying sorry
And existing in a house by a lake in the mountains.
If I had nine lives,
And since I have one,
Death is the only certainty.
Life is questionable.
And in between–
Illusion, delusion —
And sometimes confetti.