Like those before

I’m haunted by comparison;
sporadic, transparent anxieties,
ghosts of aspirations I never held
flashing
and torn from consciousness –
a moth-eaten fabric of cotton thought,
too soft, or frayed,
or sodden with apathy,
wrung out in the sink,
swallowed whole by the legacy of former invention.

Wash it down with the rest of your lukewarm beer
(your latest excuse for indecision)
lest you take responsibility for all you do,
for all you are,
and are not,
and could be,
but won’t,
because the only choice you ever made
was to compare distress with action.

They never even had a clue
or planned that it be so,
but made to move as if they knew
and found their ground in tow.