Unfulfilled dreams keep me marching on
The center is love, a heart, dangling before me
I am a donkey and it is the carrot
Only I have not aged as well as the dream
It’s keeps perfect time, pressing every step
Meanwhile my heart has cocooned itself for the long gulag trek
With years of self absorbed behaviors
Of buying into the “me”
Like a tree you could count the rings of fat surrounding my heart
To determine the age of my idiocy
This marching has given me strong calves and premature ventricular contractions
If only my dream was externally motivated
Something superficial
Swinging weights and drinking wheatgrass
Happiness measured in lean body mass
Fat is where the flavor is
A shark would spit out a fairly lean person
Perhaps muscle tastes like work
Fat tastes like leisure
A blubbery seal gives the shark an idea
Of what it must be like to stop swimming
I feel like I can’t stop swimming
I feel like Ice cream tastes a porch swing
What happens if I stopped swimming?
Like the shark I’d drown
Divining inspiration from dark waters
Making oxygen passing water across gills
But I’m a donkey chasing a carrot
I just don’t know if I have what it takes
The resolve
The skill
The talent
Am I enough for the dream
Is just having a dream enough for me
Is my heart cocooned for a reason?
Is it metamorphosing from yesterday
Into the heart of tomorrow
The one hanging from a string
My well worn heels synchronized
But will tomorrow ever arrive?
Or have I already drowned?
My march the simplest of actions
A living dead seeking the reminder
Of what warm, life’s blood still tastes like
erichmichaels 
That’s a wonderful poem Eric ! None can match your style of writing, so much said in so little words and the climax, leaving the reader, never to return to reality, like a donkey focused only on the carrot …
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This is high praise, my friend, and you keyed in on what I had hoped came across. Thank you. I hope to keep living up to your expectations, as you are very supportive and I truly appreciate it!
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