Growth necessarily means change and choice; even passive choice.
Necessary Murder
The day I was born
Everything was possible.
Each decision thereafter
Murdered countless scores of maybes.
How can I take my next step
When I know how many of my selves
I send to the gallows?
But I am damned anyway
For even with inaction
There are untold numbers
Of lives unlived.
But choose I must
If I want to direct
The executioner’s axe,
If I want to make sacred
The sacrifice of all my lost lives.
My truth is I must choose
With purpose and joy and grief
To make manifest the promises
On which all my ghosts depend for meaning.