Capsize

The more I think about it,
the more I realize I'll just
end up with an un-usable degree,
and I'll be waiting tables in a dive
somewhere, living in fear of losing
my electricity while taking the bus
to the laundromat on Wednesday nights.


I'll lose what I've worked for
and I'll sleep in a noisy room
alone between starchy sheets
unable to come home
or go far away.
Without a car and living
off ramen noodles 
among peeling walls
and probably roaches.


Because this 
love that swells
through my heart
for all of these 
fanciful things, 
these creative endeavors
I wish could define
is absurd.
It will kill me,
inevitably.
It is not practical,
but I can't stop it.


I'll pursue it anyway,
knowing the consequences
of debt and penury
and loneliness and 
my death.


But I want to die
among notebooks
filled with soul.
I want the whisperings 
pressed between pages,
so someone might know
that I tried.


And if I 
am in a cold apartment alone
in a seedy part of a huge city,
I hope it snows. I hope
these visions are lies.