Chances

I'm through with taking chances.
Did you hear it??
That's what the world told me yesterday.
It was like a Norman Rockwell painting
of a polka dot and yellow happy couple
got ripped to shreds right before my eyes.
It was like I watched the Beatles die.

Where is it, America?
Where's that silent, subtle strength we've always had?
Has it gone to Hell with all the new age thinking,
twisting, turning good to bad?
The Statue of Liberty wore an all-black gown today
and I knelt down and wept.
She blinked, and in an instant,
everything crumbled down,
and suddenly we were all too tired, all too fragile,
too dang worried, too damn scared,
of a ring on a hand, of a name
on a paper, of a promise leaving our lips.

Let's just hide out, America, forget what we do best.
Stay scared and hide inside our empty houses
with everything we "have" that still means nothing
and nothing is all we will ever become if
we continue in this mess.

So stand up, Someone.
Don't give up just yet, there's plenty,
I promise, of that.
For fear of failure can not stop us from living,
when living is all we have,
When moving forward and taking chances has become
not only a matter of living,
but a matter of life,
and death.


-kb