Complacency (poetry is always indulgence)

I leave no stain on the world.

No more than the usual first-worlder.

Only plastics, carbon dioxide,

and wasted water.

–

I make no claim on the world.

I have struggled and found Enough.

Safety. Security.

And why not rejoice?

People would die, have died,

for Enough.

–

My pen lies empty.

–

I make no stand.

I once had plans

that washed through my fingers

and when I stood and looked again

my juniors walked ahead,

a mile away, ahead.

–

They speak their ambition in light tongues.

‘I might, I might.’

You will, for you are not me.

Nails crush into palm.

–

My pen lies empty.

–

I dabble in the shallows of my authorial plans.

Always Someday, Someday, Someday…

–

My pen lies empty.

–

How dare I do?

How dare I not do?

–

I said I would.

I said I would, but…

–

I have built this Enough

on this bones of my broken dreams.

I have calm.

For the first, I have calm.

And yet, O Muse, you haunt me.

Restless ambition.

Fool human condition.

This Enough is no longer Enough.

–

I leave no stain?

How dare I.

How dare I.

–

I make no claim?

How can I?

May I?

–

To make a stand?

I will break, as breaking does.

(How many times before I convince myself

that I am not brittle?)

–

How dare.

–

Still.

Ceaseless pen.

You urge me to write.

–

World.

Indulge me, please,

this once.

Allow my selfishness.

Please.

–

Dead conscious safety or reckless living vanity.

Either way, please indulge–

(No, only one way)

(Ever only one way)

–

Ever only one way.

So it is.

I write.

–

Urge.

I have no complacency with you here.