January 14, 2020

caramel

Whatever it is—a better job, a happier marriage, a planet stitched to the stars—
a shard of defeat will arrive to scissor your ambition, and a shadowy, shapeless density
will appear to darken, permanently, any hope of good news. You will wonder 
how the tide turned so sharply and so menacingly, and you will implicate 
your own soft-eyed optimism, and you will shutter your heart like an enemy at war,
telling yourself it is wrong to expect so much out of one small life, how much easier
to pluck your way forward without desire tugging at your legs, dragging you under. 
But it will never be completely gone, this image you held, this spark of want, this ache
that wagged its caramel finger and shattered your low-bellied view. It will hover, 
shameless as spring, refusing your refusal. It will beat the odds. It will outlive everything.