By Design

Damned to the confines of our own choices and mistakes
Insisting the only way to know each other
Is to tear off our skins
And plunge our hands into one another
To touch their bones and hold their viscera
I can hear the low hum of voices
And the delicate tinkling of forks on plates
From the other room
We are left to imagine, to fill in the details
To eavesdrop and speculate about our own decisions
Omission by design, by spectral plane and dimension
What makes a person so afraid of change
When change is the essence of every reality
Except our own
Our own inability to leave behind the past
And to seize an unwritten future