Who's to Say -


Belief is a finicky thing – 
Who’s to say what’s right,	
If there’s anything after			
This grand ole’ fight? 
		
Some say heaven only 
If you’re prayerful and sing, 
Some say purgatory	 
If you hang ‘urself with a string.
		
But I remain hard to convince	 
If there’s any proper protocol, 
Especially since 
We’ve heard basically Fuck-all. 
	
So who am I to say 
Whether to go left or right, 
I could die an old saint 
Or shoot myself despite. 
		
But there is a wrong and a right,
If I know anything to be true:	
It's that the violence you choose 
Can only ever be against you. 
		
If there’s anything at all 
(and for all we really know) 
Maybe it’s the suicide who makes it, 
And the saint who goes below. 
		
But if traditional thought were true 
How unjust *that* would be… 
Because this monster enslaves you, 
Turns the whole gray, empty and rue. 
			
How can you atone or be punished 
For when your mind goes wrong, 
And all you wanna to do 
Is end it all, after so long? 
			
So maybe, I muse, in trying to flee... 
And upon waking up in a higher plane,	
They say, “Congrats, that was the key!”	 
Perhaps, after all, peace you did attain. 
	
But if, gun in hand, you sit there for a while 
And feel all of its absurd unreason, 
Belligerently consider its “lessons” a trial – 
Maybe you’ll see, just maybe, another season. 


ER Poem 4, 15 February 2023