Unchoosing

A paper boat does not carry you through a storm just as a house of cards cannot stand in the wind.
It was magnificent while it lasted of course.
Colourful, alluring, pretty to look at.

Then the winds began and the rain fell, and all my words bled into elements beyond control.
I’m tired of dreams; I’m tired of their ethereality while my heart is subject to the physicality of being alive in form.
The most vivid imagining is sometimes not enough; just ask the Little Match Girl.

But the world doesn’t hold the form I long for.
So I strike match after match after match, letting moments of pretend keep me alive.
For now.

Because the alternative is darkness. The alternative is ending instead of finishing (there’s a difference).
I could never choose to live in this reality that became a mistake the moment you were gone. I’m incapable of it.
But while I’m here, while there’s work to be done, the way I carry on is through little acts I call unchoosing. There is nothing I could want now, but I know what I don’t want.  And that makes the choice for me indirectly.

Do I have it all figured out?
Certainly not.
Each act is the strike of a match; they are limited, and they will end, but perhaps by then they would have lit some lasting kind of flame.