Unwanted Advice

Someone once said “To die in pursuit of a dream is better than to live without one.”
At what point in this savagery,
killing time, selling it too,
did I give up on the imaginary?
When did I get so tired chasing my dreams,
When did I become so scared in my head,
That I would give up on all I wanted, it seems
I thought I’d be less tired compromising instead.

Now I’m portly,
in a quandary about the quantity the kitchen paper’s absorbing,
daubing my signature on soul sales contracts, maudlin,
and worried about the mortgage.
I’ve cut out gluten, it makes me bloated,
my company just floated, I’m locked into share options
twenty years already I doted on their interests,
ten more is all I’m hoping, set sail and boated
into a future of promise,
heaven; suffer now for a chance at better later.
Suffering is easy.
All I need is TV,
my tai chi,
and a chai tea,
and a read of a self-help book nightly.

Someone once said “If it’s an effort to be happy, you’re not happy.”
But that must be a lie,
trust me because I
have paid for the best tests, invested, I’ve spent much wealth
on life coaches as recommended by Men’s Health,
and they all say it’s my fault I’m unhappy,
crappy job, nappies, relationship tense and scrappy?

Someone once said “You’re not a fighter if you’re fighting to submit.”
I didn’t believe it a bit, thought it was shit,
but now I wonder,
Was my dream the biggest blunder?
Or was it sensibly choosing not to follow it, as I slowly went under
Downed, unconscious and drowned in a sea of frowns,
clowns in suits, chasing dollar and pound?

Someone once said “Sacrificing everything is the worst lesson you can teach your children.”
And I wonder if they might be right,
this unsightly night, brightly lit by dim lamps,
the stars shine and remind me the universe is billions of years old.
What do I get? A blink,
It stinks, maybe I should make the most of it,
Maybe it doesn’t matter, my life’s a dream and I’m just the host of it,
but when I die it shouldn’t be about loss,
it should be about love for life,
and a toast to it.

Someone once said,
“A bank balance can swell for talents well beyond their worth,
and a property is not a home, a home is where your love lives,
and whatever it is have no self-loathing about your girth,
a body is only as good as the mind in it, and the compassion it gives.
The things that truly bother a human spirit, as they lay their weary head,
gasping, clutching at the final few moments of life, undignified on some bed,
are not “I’m glad I paid the electricity bill!” or
“I spent too much time with my loved ones, I wish I’d been at work more, instead!”

They regret not having spent as much time in contact with their loved ones as they did with strangers on the mass transit.
They regret that the closeness they felt with those strangers was uncomfortable and remote.
They regret not having started conversations with those fellow strangers.
They regret having spent more time working to make sure society thought their family was perfect than they spent recognising their family was perfect regardless.
They regret that their idea of perfection was sown from the seeds of nonsensical media and political ideals, reaped into a crop of resentment and emotional distance.
They regret the days they spent arguing about a photocopier instead of hugging their children, making love to their partner, or walking and talking with a friend.
They regret that people supposedly work to live, when they live regardless of whether they work or not.
They regret that to have a quality of life, one has to work for a concept as lacking in meaning as money.
They regret that love is not a universal currency.
They regret the times they sold their dreams to sacrifice it all for whatever they deemed more important.
They regret that they were stupid enough to be duped into thinking this was noble.
They regret that they taught their children the same lessons they had learned before.
They regret the spiral.
They regret that they were not the ones to break it.
They regret.
I grow weary of their regrets.”

On the shoulders of giants, but small of mind,
in the footsteps of fallen messiahs, I stepped.
Every one of them, I came to find,
in death, and regret, they slept.

Someone once said “I have come to take you to a land without fear or care.”
That someone is death. It is their advice I wish I could share.