The though was “betrayal”
or maybe it was “onus”
The unpayable debt, the blood price
(And if I paid it, would I be free?)
My memories are of Atlas lifting the world on
                                                        his shoulders
Sisyphus rolling up the Stone.
The karyatid crushed beneath the load…

And does one lead to another?
The invariant path, the unbending road
That to carry this burden
was to tread these darkling paths alone.
And in the end everyone lets go
who really abandons whom?

(I thought that it was never worth trusting
because nothing ever lasts)

The vagaries of Time, of Distance
of the paths not taken
the branches pruned

How probability becomes inevitability
How change, how fortune
    becomes destiny

(Fixed and pinned down like a wiggling worm.)

If I had learned to let go
would it have made a difference?
(And all I’ve ever learned to do, is let everything go.)

Piling burden upon burden…