Fossil Fuels (poem)

By Luke Labern

I made prayers as a child
      To appease selfish wishes --
'Let them be okay,' and 'Please,
      Could I have this and that?'

A child alone believes in fantasy;
      A man, at best, pretends.
The hole in the sky or the hole in the ground:
      That's where it ends.

Isolation begets imagination
      But it also breeds regret:
The longer I live, the more sure I am
      That I live to forget.

Swagger and bravado run through my veins,
      Like precious fossil fuels:
I'm an engine.
      Scrapheap or car crash?