Safety Blanket

If you could choose
Would you forego
Long life — passionless —
For a short one
Ablaze with passion

Who would choose
To witness themselves
Consumed
By fire
By plague from inside out

Would you forego
Family, jobs, money
Hobbies, holidays
Respectability, certainty

But what is it
That already gnaws you hollow
From inside out

Must it not be
The unlived life
Already inside

The spark you smothered
Under promise of money
Under fear of disgrace
Under the secure sirens
Of jobs, family, pension

Its whisper drowned
By disciplined tongues
By moral diagnoses
By prescriptions that promise
To postpone the inevitable

Would you open the door
Uncover the spark
Let it be stoked, turn to blaze
Burn through the padded walls
Of your careful life
All the blankets you wrapped
Around it

Have you never believed
The blankets, the sand, the noise
Were your saviours
Saving you from yourself
From your own raving lunacy
Kept under lock
So you don’t combust
Too soon

And if you’d still forego
Long life — passionless —
Then look —
Beneath your fears

You will hear
Whispers of passion
To scream
You will feel
The spark
To set your life
On fire

So pray — whatever the cost
Pray that it comes

And when it does
Do not ask it to knock