Debts

I was in debt, mostly to my life.
I owe it to him—to be more smiling, happier.
Let my world turn again despite all the spinning globes,
and me to be myself, the flame in me burning still.

I owe it to myself—to love and be loved.
Isn't that the whole point of all that surrounds us?
But people have shrunk and dressed themselves up—
some in selfishness, some in stinginess right to their final breath.

And how they fear the goodness burning in my eyes,
when they glimpse it, they turn away for a moment!
They've lost their nights and squandered their days,
hurried, throwing away perhaps every moment that follows.

And I'm rushing too, walking these roads of my life,
and I see them there—all the shrunken, cold, and wandering souls.
They drift like little scrolls, do they,
folded and compressed into themselves, in the rainy days of June.

And what debts they've accumulated to themselves—
I don't know if they've seen it, if they ever will, now.
To be alive and real in this timeless age,
it costs everything to keep your soul untouched.