I walked barefoot and a scorpion bit me:
I panicked and found myself without first aid.
As I lay in the dust, freaked out and weepy,
I resorted to cheap philosophy for my final day.
I reflected on the issue of money v. time;
I realised children are the future;
I rued leaving dishes covered in grime;
I regretted calling my sister a moocher.
I wished I had visited Paris and Spain,
I wished I written that book I had planned,
I wished I had danced more in the rain,
I wished I had lived with more loving hands.
I rued every day not spent in heady love,
I mourned all the opportunities missed,
I regretted the petty squabbles I could not rise above,
And wept for the lovers I had never kissed.
My fingers tingled: I braced for my fate;
I thought of my loved ones, my family, my friends;
Then a passing groundskeeper said "they’re not deadly, mate:
It’ll hurt for a bit, but it’s not quite the end."
I sat up, covered with dust and with sticks,
He grinned and went on his confident way;
I’d fallen for one of fate’s oldest tricks,
And now, life reaffirmed, went on with my day.
Carpe diem, and all that, and so I should;
My life-lease renewed; my apathy gone.
My priorities are shaken up, well and good;
But later — right now, there’s good TV on.