“Nice guys finish last.”
I’m poured out like a libation,
but not unconsumed.
On the short side of life,
now in the
emerging shadow
of my sunset years.
The bell’s final toll remains
unseen, unknown, and left to hide.
The cold aspect of
the Reaper’s featureless face
gives me a sage nod.
Captured now by my choices,
I live the life I do,
a life forged of heart and mind,
iron will and querulous wavering.
It is not the life envisioned or imagined,
and time turns its back on my recriminations,
moving ever-forward,
taking the vision with it.
And so…
the life I have.
“Nice guys finish last.”
The words sound bitter in the darkness.
And yet, for all the times of hardship and failure,
and getting back up to fight once more
because
it was the only thing left to do,
those words don’t ring quite true.
Beyond Panic 