I know you say that there
is no ominous being in the sky keeping score
like an overworked accountant
chewing on a cigar and casting
transgressors over the edge of their
thin planks into the fiery goop
grinning and waiting to swallow them up
bubbling merely inches from their bootheels.
You say that’s the stuff of myths and
bad nighttime stories from parents and
wretched sermons from pulpits better left forgotten.
You say you threw that out with Santa Claus.
But as you live through your days,
as you show up as human as you are
in the ear inside of your ear
a quiet yet ominous noise carries on:
A pencil scratch with each thought and deed
adding and subtracting from your score
plus one, minus two, plus one
oooh, that’ll set ya back a few points.
Can you believe it’s not true?
Because right now, there’s no one in sight
telling you that it is, but yet
that pencil keeps scratching for and against you and them.
What will it take for you to not believe it?
What will it take to release yourself and
the world around you from the pluses and
the minuses of the inherited score-keeping mind?
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Previously published on Medium.com.
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Photo credit: By Philip Strong on Unsplash