The question really isn’t whether you’re up to the challenge
but how long it’s gonna be until you fail it.
Hank Williams said it most rightly
when he sang “I’m never getting out of this world alive”
and it’s true
– unless you’re an astronaut.

All relationships end.
All delicious meals resolve into bowel movements.
The pet you love either winds up
in a box or eating your cheek-meat.
Your favorite shirt will finally flare into embers
after an accidental trip into a microwave.

Like Springsteen suggested,
“Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact.”
It’s all over, eventually,
and we’re left to pick up the pieces
or to be picked up ourselves.
Either way, slim pickings.

So what’s it worth?
What’s the point of it all?
Why do anything
if it boils down to tears?
Perhaps another singer has an answer.
Thus spake Lennon: “Goo goo g-joob.”