if wishes

if wishes were contracts, i'd be more careful.

maybe they are and i'm the idiot spinning my own tragedies like dandelion seed catastrophes.

if i wanted someone to understand me, i wouldn't have come here. 

i wouldn't be sleeping in this bed. in this city in this country on this...

no, i came here to understand them...their strange foods and rhythms, their lyrics and their moves.
i came here to kill dragons i inherited from my small family and my little town and my baby country and her narrow little history.
   
     and that's me i'm slaying. if i can say that "me" has parts, then i am slaying parts of me.

the dirty world gets more tragic, the scary people get more dangerous and i'm not killing fast enough to keep up.
   
     i only dream of baby daughters and infant sons and the world turns on, i remember more calmly and less passionately that i am carbon only.
    all the carbon i have is borrowed and as far as any of us can tell, means nothing.

 
i want to get somewhere and i must drive in a car behind endless other cars. we are all in line, in a line, in a line, in a line.
 
       is there a store of joy?
or are we allotted a bit at birth to be used up at some point and then to go on