You don’t become anything in this life – this life becomes you.
The sons and daughters you birth shine back your flaws.
The birds chirp absurd songs that mirror your chittering thoughts.
Their noises just as fruitless as the ones you prize as your own.
And the environment seeps into you, seeking two things:
Play and death.
Two equally demanding demons twisting about the frame you claim as yours.
You become a foam plank on a wave that crashes delightfully on a shore.
You become dog-like, chasing a whiffle ball with an over-sized ping-pong paddle.
You slide with blades on ice chasing a vulcanized rock.
That environment seeps into you.
You cast jokes into a locker room full of players.
And into a crowd of three at courtside.
And to no one in the shore playground.
Casting about to see if humans respond to the petty dramas you witness.
To the fears you share.
To the differences that are all common.
Will you catch a laugh?
Sure as you will.
Because that is the demand of the many.
Relief from an onslaught of seriousness and shadow . . .
of promise and evaporation.
Of all things loved coming and going.
And that’s only play.
Shadow hands on a cave wall.
But death demands entry into your world, as well.
As you drink wines of humor, joy and compassion, it seeps into the liver of your life.
It aims to stop you in increments – to remind you of your god-be-damned humility.
To carve up your face because a tiny freckle mutated into a flesh-eating reminder of mortality.
One with a power greater than seeds and blooms and bloody human births.
A power that takes you down with every sweep of a second hand.
Delete. Delete. Delete.
And help it if you must.
Squash the bug.
Blow out the candle.
And be born again to a new scene where life becomes you over and over.
And you, silly, thought you were making something of your self.