oloriel | One of these days I'm going to make it Poetry Day.

Why do I dread decisions so?
They scare me more than you might know;
Why is it oh so hard for me
To take responsibility?
I cannot flee, I must decide;
What choice to make? Which way is right?

Why would I rather run than stay?
My sorrows will not keep away;
Though I escape beyond this place,
There is no way to win this race.
I cannot flee for all it's worth -
Unless I flee right from this Earth.

And certainly I should not think
of that, to cut the vital link?
My troubles, though for me substantial,
are, altogether, inessential.
And though indeed they torment me,
There's more to life. I must not flee.

There's more, I know; and yet I see
Naught but Despair reach out for me;
For all the beauty of my life,
It cannot win this mental strife.
One sorrow brutally weighs down
My mind, and every joy must drown.

The mind! How marvellous a thing!
How marvellous the pow'rs within!
There labyrinths of busy thought
Lead through the webs my life has wrought;
There Reason, Intellect and Pride
Govern together side by side.

And yet, beyond pride's feeble fence
The deserts of indifference,
The barren plains of apathy
Are stretchèd out indefinitely;
And boiling pits of thought contain
Despair and Darkness, Fear and Pain.

Beyond the walls of reason frail
Primeval forces cleave their trail;
The dragons coiled of Cruelty,
Dark Passion, Wrath, Avidity;
And evil beasts with tusk and horn
Roam in the woods of thought forlorn.

The shining port of Intellect
The seeker hardly can detect:
The boundless seas of ignorance,
forgetfulness, intolerance
Wash endlessly against its shore;
One lost in them returns no more.

And now they all are making war
Inside my head: How now, therefore,
Could I decide? How could I choose?
Who is to win? Who is to lose?
My mind's not under my command;
I should decide; I should; I can't.

Why do I dread decisions so?
The options running to and fro
Between the deserts and the sea
'Till a decision comes to be,
They take up all my energy:
No joy or hope is left for me.

- - -
... why yes, Cultural Anthropology was particularly boring today.