Life Has No Map

Only a series of cryptic signposts on dimly lit roads.

Crossroads aren’t even crossroads.

Just there to force decisions

before there is enough information.

The glass of the compass was stepped upon

thus true north is

anything but true.

We are forced to take our bearings from lesser guides,

the lady on the GPS with the grating monotone,

the priest in the pulpit who forgives nothing,

Dr. Phil and his rigorously toned wife,

who now comes complete with her own line of anti-aging skin care,

developed in laboratories deep beneath the earth’s crust.

Desperate for direction

we connect the vastly unconnected.

We begin thinking

the car’s software is speaking directly to us,

that the only true absolution lurks within a tiny wooden confessional

by way of an invisible voice,

that retinol has something, anything,

to do with happiness.