The Prize

With no mind upon my plight.
This silent marker shines tonight.

It’s a constant, at least to me.
With variation in degree.

Never yielding in its path.
With certainty of simple math.

Forgotten message in the sky.
A truth that never goes awry.

And what in me is a constant?
How is that moon correspondent?

In me it’s pain, always present.
When I suffer, when it’s pleasant.

If I’m alive, then there is pain.
This isn’t easy to explain.

It’s interspersed with relief.
Passing clouds before my grief.

So that constant, ever present.
My pain and that passing crescent.

What to do, how will I deal?
What, to me, does this reveal?

This is a game I’ll surely lose.
But until then, I get to choose.

Choose the pain I will endure.
The one with the most allure.

The one that’s worth it, one with meaning.
How do I find such convening?

What sacrifice will it be?
That’s where value is to me.

To what would I give it all?
Welcome the worst to befall.

Perhaps that’s what I value most.
That’s the path ‘pon which I’ll coast.

The pain – then is – of no affect.
It’s meaningful, it is per-fect.

And when it yields to my demise,
My struggle will have been the prize.