Shifting Sands

I chose this life
but I didn't choose my genes;
a rippling of unfettered waves
upon a rocky shore.

I’ll keep walking
even though my feet are sore,
even though my eyes are watery and crusted over,
even though my head is weary.

I can learn to overstand my circumstances
and to see my mind from a dispassionate vantage point.

I don’t know if I asked to be born,
but I was;
I don’t ask to keep waking up,
but I do.

To know what I know,
to believe what I believe and feel what I feel,
these are like the staining of glass
over the retinas of my eyes,
the erosion of stones over billions of years,
the shifting of sands beneath the rocks upon the shore.