Destiny as simple as booking a one-way trip
on a train winding through the canyons and passes of decision
along the lonely gray strand of time
where the waves crash and break into quantum foam
chances realized then dematerialized
and not even a scrap of hope remains

Looking back, it was never a single wrong choice
not even a failed gambit, a collapsed strategy
rather the unrelenting summation of a hundred thousand moments
fate, like a gusty wind, a torrid sea, buffeting me this way and that
still, in the loneliness of the utter darkness
in those aching moments before blessed sleep
I search my memory, sifting through the wrack and ruin
trying to find that one moment I can pin my despair onto
where it was guaranteed to go wrong from there on out
a monument to the end of daydreams, where fantasy died.