Burnt Destiny

I hide, to no avail,
from the vagaries of life,
but they sniff me out
by the copper in my blood

and the salt in my tears;
biological breadcrumbs that crumble
my psyche into splinters always
hidden from polite company.

I long to walk along the median line
that splits the highway, it's linear spine
so perfectly placed, calls to me
to follow it with tandem gait,

but the road map I follow
looks more like palmistry,
my air hands flail around my face
while my fate line remains uncertain.

Twists and turns await preventing me
from seeing what lies beyond the next bend
and retracing steps through the badlands
is impossible to fathom.

So I push on with head down
breathing in jagged puffs and pray
that the sun will some day break through
and simply burn me to a pile of ash.

Author's Note

Captcha: gasser

Reviews

[Frieda P]

I can hardly articulate how affecting this was blue...I felt it in my bones and to my very core. You've rendered me speechless...

and the salt in my tears;
biological breadcrumbs that crumble
my psyche into splinters always
hidden from polite company.

Cut from the same cloth, I weep for you daily....'biological breadcrumbs' nuff said.

[icelandicblue]

Now I'm tearing up. I know you know and I am so sorry that you do. Last night was a rough and sleepless one- this poem was born from that. I want it to stop and I am powerless to stop it and still I try. Thank you my friend.

[Frieda P]

We should have taken off for Belize yesterday, rough day for me too, my sister's anniversary, compounded by the burnt edges of all this crap, when do we get a break? I guess we can't stop trying, it's not in our DNA to give up, but in the meantime it's killing us slowly...I feel you my friend.

[icelandicblue]

Yes we should have run on to that plane! I'm so sorry Frieda.

[David Scott]

Great persistence with feeling the whole "burned out" theme.
Even youths feel this phenomenon, but it seems to flare up over and over and over as we press on in this "badland" of striving.
One of the drawbacks of modern societies.
Well captured.

[icelandicblue]

Thanks David,
You are right, living in this modern society has its benefits but it also takes its pound of flesh.

[Creepy Swine Guy]

Okay, let us first hush the tight-assed editor within. He cries out for a comma after "placed" and he humbly requests that the comma after "hide" to be nudged to the spot after "avail". That being said ... I feel you. I know your pain. So much I might modify were I given access to my past ... so much about my future I might like to know.

You have written it well, even up to that adventurous streak that has you walking the center line while the less fearless among us stay close to the safety of the shoulder.

[icelandicblue]

Thanks for the editing advice which I have taken. Life is an adventure until it's not. Thank you so much for your insight and for your comments.

[Aethereal]

These six free-verse quatrains had a good flow to them. Life is an uncertain path spooked by dangers of all kinds. Sometimes we wish that our uncertainty and the dread that comes with it could turn to ash as the truth (sunlight) about our ultimate fate breaks through the fog ahead. With uncertainty, comes hope.

[icelandicblue]

I like that Aethereal- with uncertainty comes hope. Thank you.