Life’s Tough

Life’s tough.

No surprise there.

Why do we make it worse?

Act like we don’t when we care?

Wise decisions and choices

For others so easily made.

When we look at our own mess

It becomes obvious we are afraid.

Life’s rough.

Incriminating innocence

Is crushed beneath an inability

To express upset with calm resonance.

Smart moves are avoided

By ears too panicked to hear.

Our own culpability is what

Magnifies our own mustard grain of fear.

Life’s a rough and tumble business

Where only the strong survive.

There the weak do not perish;

They merely fail to appear alive.

Kathy Adams