PhD, grandkids, name, home, Great Writer; even just 'such a handsome boy'; mom and dad and brother in some unimaginable orbit fixed blinding bright in the sky. No stars save one survive daybreak. Now navigate, son. 'No destiny' should free me but frightens instead. College is four life's years, not a goddamn degree; love for love, for lovers - there's nothing else. Mostly I don't (can't) buy it, can't risk realizing what I've missed. Despair waits there. Welcome loss is gift and catharsis; fearful loss is death. I am my longest-running project; I fear finishing, boredom, beginning. That's death too.
(for C.L.)
