Poem - Change

I regret to admit that I am a little over my head at work.  I hate my job... well... that's not true.  I don't hate my job or my boss or the people I work with.  I hate that my job is my job and not someone else's job, and that my job is not some other job that I would rather be my job.

But you know this.

And I assume that you have assumed that while I hate my job, I would hate even more being without a job and a means to feed myself and my family.  I would hate that more.

Anyway, it's federal reporting time and I am swamped with work.  This will last about another week.

In the mean time I hope to offer up some tidbits there and here for your reading consumption.

Today's offering is a poem.

I don't know if it is good.  It may not be.  I like to say that my poems have been rejected by the finest poetry magazines around.  But never have they been accepted by anyone.  So they may suck hard.  You decide.  If you want you can even let me know.

Change

Why avoid change?

No one else will.

You try to keep from changing

In a desperate attempt to hold the world

In some idealized past

Or to prevent an imagined troubled future.

But the change is already in you.

For in the past you were not trying

To prevent change.

So in that small respect

You have changed.

But even if that is the same

You cannot keep your friends,

Your acquaintances

And everyone around you

From changing.

They will change.

Whether they want to or not.

And your world will be different.

You will be the only unchanging thing

In a sea of change.

And while you desperately cling

To your romanticized past,

Pretending in your heart that you are holding things together,

You will become the chaos

To everyone else’s predictable future.

“But if we all try to stay the same,”

You might suggest,

“If we all try to prevent change,

We could make it work.”

That is possible.

But here you assuming that everyone was happy

Back then.

They weren’t.

So they have changed.

And your insistence that they stay the same

Is like asking them to stay unhappy.

But maybe you hope to convince them

That they were happy.

Maybe you think you can make all the world believe

Things were better back then

When they weren’t.

And that we should all work to advance to the past.

Maybe you can convince them to change

So that they will work

To prevent change.

But don’t count on me.

In this matter, ironically,

I am resolute.

Though everyone else

May join in your stationary parade

I will not.

I will throw no confetti.

I will shout no cheers of praise.

I will not stand by and observe.

I will not even be me.

For I have changed.