No Win

In the middle of the night
I received such a fright,
awakened by a ghost,
cliché at first sight.
He thought it a crime
as I screamed in rhyme
so he told me to stop
so I did.

He led me on a path
on which I skipped,
a path with no ups,
only downs,
and while on this path
on a constant verge
of collapse,
it somehow held together.

I was shown nothing,
not given a sign
or a glimmer of direction
or a hand to pull me
from the deep lows.
God
was a fractured figment
of my imagination.

Or was He?
Or was She?
Or were They?

I was given not a bed,
but had to make one
and then lie in it
all wrong,
because a bed
without instructions
can only be made
all wrong.

Or was it?
Was it right for me?

In the middle of the day,
every so often, I see myself
as not human.
And every so often, I realize
the reason I can’t live
in this world
is because I can’t stop
being human.

If I attach,
I do so at my own peril.
If I detach,
I do so at my own peril.
Forced to attach
and detach
at my own peril
for wrong reasons.

But right for them,
for the people I don’t save
because I’m not a hero.
But those who save me
every day
don’t know they’re heroes,
don’t feel like heroes,
but they are.

We are.