A deadful dread – to see someone else living my dream.

What else could be greater torture?

To live alone is time of silence,

To live in pain is intimacy with perseverance,

To live in darkness is hope of light.

But to have lived in fear…

Is to have wielded a shield of selfishness,

    to have rejected all those invitations to imagine that kept me up at               night,

    to have traded faith for comfort.

And for that comfort, I received regret;

 for that comfort, I earned the ultimate discomfort of a seat in the 2nd     row;

 for that comfort, I reserved a VIP ticket to watch as someone else took     the stage, summited the peak, and mounted the podium.

As I now consider what vision could be greater torture,

It would only be to stop in the walkway as the leaves fall, staining the concrete beneath my feet, and see there standing in the trail an apparition:

The ghost of who I once was hearing some voice as it sings, but choosing instead to walk on… walk on… walk on…

Not daring to listen.