love and success,
fame and wealth,
happiness and health...
they are all mirages
made in childhood
with fingerpaint provided
by our dumb parents,
who we are subconsciously
forced to chase over the horizon.
death is the true mirage,
offering respite or damnation,
while life keeps limping along
leaving lessons to be learned
as well as fire to be burned.
we are all trying to present
dramatic irony in terms of
how we try to hold onto the past
in ways that are not practical
to modern life.
time moves on,
irrespective of our strong, flailing attempts
to hold onto it;
you have to live the present
as much as you're trying to grasp the past.