By Martin Falatic
Written 2003-11-11
Revised 2003-11-11

How many doors I have closed, only to see others open?
Living a calico life, a patchwork of experience and sensation…
And yet, I wonder: Is it worth it?
To have sampled so much yet savored so little?
Defaulting on dreams for the sake of realism?

Surely there is some crime in this,
Some payment yet to come due.
Yet perhaps it is in our nature to doubt:
A Puritan nation, we see in absolutes.
Perhaps we’ve paid with our very birthright.

The heart rises as selfish hope falls away,
A sublimation of the ego to save the soul,
Until finally we know what it is to be free.
“Who will care in a hundred years?”, they say.
A call to apathy… or a call to action?

And so we act, closing some doors and opening others,
Living and hoping and loving and despairing…
Tracing a weaving path through life.
Drinking deeply the wine of realism,
To forget the dreams that haunt us.