Poem: One-Step

Just one step ahead.
Always.
Just
one
step.
I lose all my clothes in a fire.
But I have a laundromat credit card with $18.40 on it.
So my first night in my new home
I pick a bunch of clothes from the trash
and wash them with my laundry credit.
Which was a good thing
because the next day was freezing cold.
So I wore all those clothes.
I took my foodstamps and bought
a small stock of backup food.
Which turned out to be smart
becaue the next day
I loaned my card to Mama-San
and she lost it for a day,
so I still had food.

Don't you see?
It just goes on and on like this.
I'm always just one step away
from the jaws of destruction.
But there is always one action,
one choice, one solution,
which will save me.
How do I know which one?
I don't.
That's my life, too, in short.
Moving blindly forward,

trusting
my instinct indistinct,
my unreasonable reason,
which never fails me,
never fails to fail me.
My failure is my success.
My successes are forgotten.
Let's all dance
to the fire of destruction.
Dance while nothingness burns.