Not Life But Something Like It

My life is over. I have failed to show

The reason I am here. I do not know

The answer to the question: who am I:

Remains a mystery. I don’t know why

I lived at all, a set of facts in doubt

While I while time away and wait life out.

The children I did not have, things unsaid,

The work I never did, books left half read,

Matter not at all now as the end draws near,

Purposeless actions left behind me here.

What I did and did not do no one cares,

Least of all me, who wasted all these years

Wondering whether what I did was right

When all I had to do was say, “Good night.”

So now I go to sleep, perchance to dream,

Allowing what has been to stay the same:

To leave things just like this is why I came.

                                                                                    KLK

                                                                                    1/10/06 revised 5/19/08