What happened? Oh nothing spectacular really--
Do you think I sound exceptionally happy today?
Well, I have to admit I'm feeling specially chatty--
But I wouldn't go so far as to say really happy
--More okay--and okay is okay--and okay is underrated.
Yes, I'm a little upbeat, as though a pulse is rising in me
Or a quiet secret electricity is coursing through my nerves.
--Yet nothing has radically changed really--believe me.
Work is still that black hole of hope,
Making rent remains a desperate monthly marathon,
Family's good I suppose: I don't hear from them often,
And our lives are still becoming heavier, more sedentary
--We haven't quit losing hair, color, imagination, memories.
It's just that I've come upon something vital--
Call it a profound insight or a flash of wisdom if you will.
But it's really more like I've finally been told the gossip about myself.
It's like being let into the secret of the naturally poor,
Of all the happy enlightened slaves to constructs and creeds,
Of the faceless, the freaks, and the fast and forever forgotten.
It's the simple feeling and flair for life of ordinary people:
The believer, the crazed, the besotted, the genius, the great.
Anyone who's relinquished true desire and brazen dreaming--
Sorry, I think I got a little bit carried away there--
What I'm getting at boils down to something simple really:
It's appropriated despair, better known as resignation,
The most effective cure-all placebo,
The magic pill and silver bullet,
The alcohol-free liquor for life,
Pure protection from pain,
Forgetfulness and forgiveness prior to experience,
The ultimate insurance against the surety of failure,
The ancient Stoic secret: victory without participation
The sorry and surrender that never ever have to be said.
