I’m not sure if my best times are ahead
or behind me,
the anxiety of not knowing
has blinded me
to the possibilities of what could come to be;
possibilities that continue to elude me.

I don’t know how my worst times
have shaped me, or shaped my mind.
To that I’m inevitably blind.
And though I seek out happier thoughts,
they’re all just memories,
of a life I no longer recognize as mine.

But there’s always more living to be done
and to what extent I would become
an embodiment of self-castigation,
of unfettered need,

the rapacious quality of unconscious greed
that drives this society,

and divides the populace and me,
into factions of unfettered hate:
infractions against this dehumanized social state,
preventing humanity from being great.

But that is not me.

I fear the worst times are yet to come,
so I turn back to sweeter times,
wishing some things could be undone.
But without that possibility,
this social and spiritual decay has become
an inevitability.

I look back to memories of what once was,
only to see a life
that’s somehow lost
to time, to life
to a distant memory.

Guiding me into the eventuality
that yes, this body will decline,

and so it seems,
will this mind.

So I’ll keep on reaching,
seeking
thoughts of happy things,
yet never grasp them,

nor bring them back to me.

and without them,
I am never me.

I am never free.