I have a problem,
I am in trouble.
A gnawing fault,
ready to split under my feet,
ready to swallow me whole.
Should I be worried?
Is there a point?
Can faults be joint?
I can sit and cry,
lament my fate and decry,
this cruel cold world.
That I live on the surface
of a die, absolutely fair,
to everyone apart from me.
Should I curse?
Nay, what good would that do?
I refuse to sob today.
Perhaps it should have been,
that a few tears yesterday
were owed.
I should have grieved then,
when I first saw them signs,
of where this was headed,
a disaster in the making.
Should I have stopped then,
in my efforts to make amends,
and philosophized instead,
on the nature of things,
the futility of ambition,
and other drunken conversations?
Must I have stopped working,
halting progress, and preventing
today instead of causing it?
Nay I say, that too seems
a path doomed, a luxury,
afforded only in hindsight,
but not true to the soul,
of one that does not believe
in quitting prematurely.
Perhaps I should have,
paused the day before yesterday,
when I had but begun.
Nascent that the project was,
it was easier then perhaps,
to pity its meager existence
before it had become this
monster of giant import
I now face this day.
Before I had time to get,
attached to the possibilities,
and dream a future with it.
Isn’t caution the medicine
of wise men against suffering?
Nay says the voice of reason,
speaking through the depths
of time past and lost.
Nay it says, you cannot
always lament a thing’s demise
before it is even born.
This is no way to live a life,
this is no way to armor,
your heart in doubt and failure.
Perhaps I am thinking about this
in the wrong way.
When should I be worried?
Not now, that the disaster has occurred.
Not yesterday, when it could be
yet prevented.
Not certainly, the day before,
when the sky was still blue,
and the sun still beamed in my face,
blinding me to the oncoming storm.
Not tomorrow, when I shall be too
busy fixing the world,
and putting my pride back in place.
And not the day after when,
this problem would surely seem,
trivial before the new ones
I would have then acquired.
Ask yourself, dear reader.
Truly, when is the time?
To worry and fret and complain,
about all of your troubles.
Before, during, or after?
How is one to take time off,
to lift one’s head from work,
from the unending task of
improving oneself,
preparing for failure,
failing,
and improving some more?
How?
When?
Why, should one lament
the eternally lamentable?