Sometimes I'm afraid that the fatalists are right,
that our lives are moving along on a
track
laid out long before we were
conceived,
with twists, dips, turns, and hills
that we won't see coming
before either grinding to a halt or
easing to a gentle stop.
But just because we didn't design
the ride
doesn't mean it has to be any less
fun.
We should let the fear build as we
slowly climb
and scream the whole way down;
raise our hands, letting our bodies
jerk and press against the harness;
and smile the entire time,
so whenever that hidden flashbulb
goes off we look our best.
After all, we waited billions of
years to be born,
and I've been waiting in line for
this roller coaster
for over an entire God damn hour.
***
(Minneapolis, MN -- May, 2017)
Similar to the previous poems, I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. In the meantime, I took a poetry class at The Loft in Minneapolis and wrote this before one of our sessions. This poem came out of the thought that every chemical reaction that causes our thoughts and actions is dictated by the same laws of physics and the same chemistry as the movement of the stars and the eruption of science fair volcanoes and the twists and turns of roller coasters. By that same line of reasoning, everything that every happened and ever will happen in our lives and in the entire Universe was determined at the moment of the Big Bang, but does that mean we need to despair?
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