“So,” I ask myself, “who is the most tortured soul?
The man who wants a woman he can no longer have,
Or the woman who wants the man who wants a woman
He can no longer have?”

How many ventures into that knot will I make
Until some sense loosens its fiercely held grip?
How much time will I spend “in-wanting” instead of “in-having?”
How much of what is, will be ignored because of what is not;
How much of my life will be displaced, overlooked, misdirected?

Are we, the two of us, doomed as are other tortured souls,
To wander endless paths to mindless extinction?
The future.
Does it hold the promise of the rack,
The thumb-screws,
The drip-drip-drop of water on the forehead of life-awaiting-love,
As arbitrary decisions are handed down from whatever sources
May be in charge of our eternal souls?

And who are they?
Omnipotent power, unanswerable to humanity?
Or are they, in reality, each and every one of us who turns away,
Without regard, without regret, avoiding,
To seek instead some personal safety net of security? Of sanity?