it's better to be an optimist

it's better to be an optimist
than to be pissed on, kissed
by snakes' lips, fitted with irons
and twisted into broken shapes
by a machine that was neither built
nor designed, by a life that is not hard,
so much as deathly kind
as it takes what you have to offer,
thanks you,
and stores it where it will do the most
good:
crushed flat between forces
that never once even knew you
could possibly exist
before they crushed.

believe you me,

trust: it's better to be

an optimist

than to have a gun
go off in your hand,
aimed at everything fragile you
once loved,

it is better to be -

than to prove
yourself wrong, by trying as hard
as you could

and fail,

- an optimist,

than to know that at last

and at least

(and alas)

you were right