The Boxer

I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles Such are promises All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...Paul Simon If life has taught me anything, it's that I cannot be trusted to make any meaningful decisions without fumbling the ball. Almost every attempt has been met with failure. And I have no one to blame but myself. I always manage to choose the wrong path, take up the wrong cause. trust the wrong people. So here I am at a crossroads again...only this time every path looks equally dark and dangerous. I don't know if it's just the storm clouds that always seem to be hanging overhead but my thoughts are all so confused and murky. My life took such a sudden and intoxicating turn 7 months ago that sent me to dizzying heights. Some force of nature entered my life without warning and swept me up into a tornado of hope and faith then spit me back out the other side as it twisted its way back out of my life leaving me to ponder the debris littering the landscape. Plenty of broken pieces laying around...pieces of my heart and soul...pieces of my faith and trust...and I'm not sure I have the strength to gather them up let alone try to piece them back together. But gather them up I must...not because I want to...but because I have to. Because that's the only thing I know how to do. I seem powerless to stop the carnage yet oddly qualified to sweep up the mess left behind. But this time it's different. This time, for the first time, against all advice, I might just leave these pieces lie where they are. A memorial to the death of living history. A reminder that only a fool repeats the same pattern expecting different results. So I will leave it alone. I will head to the ocean and sit on the sand, lining up my mistakes, my failures, my fears like pebbles on the shore and wait for high tide to carry them away. When I can see them no more I will turn and carry on with the sands of distant shores under my heels...maybe then my fortunes will be renewed. In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade and he carries the reminders of every glove that's laid him down or cut him till he cries out in his anger and his shame "I am leaving, I am leaving" but the fighter still remains...Paul Simon