This territory you’ve staked out, in the mistaken belief
that it is yours:
when you check the small print,
you’ll discover it doesn’t belong to you,
however vehement your claims.
I demanded conditionality,
preferring confinement to the expanses beyond.
I kept accounts; favours done, debts incurred
All weighed in the balance
as I exacted my imagined dues
(I thought life owed me
and I thought you did, too)
We bleed ourselves dry trying to make life abide
by our caveats, clauses, and conditions.
Without them, I am so outrageously, indecently alive.
