Track

This horse race based game
we play on the day to day
is getting older like the man
at the track waving dollar bills
as they roar past.
A place where we only ever bet
on who’s in last down at the finish line
where the world ends every lap
or so it seems.

Humans have it in their hearts to simplify
because the games we all agree to
are what make it so that we can see the world.
Some chalk set down in squares
can make the almost limitless blacktop
seem containable, like the whole road
isn’t vast at all, and in comparison
to the speeds that have inspired it,
there isn’t even any fair comparison.

We know the best songs by just the opening
rhythms as if what makes them great
is packed in every layer.
By the final notes we wish that there
were more in some compartment
that we didn’t know was there.
We are somewhere in the middle now,
and I can’t tell if we’re gaining on the end.
So we might as well continue on
and play pretend with all our favorite people
that we use too much to realize
are the same.