choices

Choices come with baggage
they do not come alone.
You think it's just for the moment,
but they always follow you home.

Have a drink too many
and get behind the wheel
You put yourself and others in harm's way
no one else gave you that raw deal.

Have sex with someone special
but a condom is a bother.
Then the sheriff's at your door
and someone is calling you father.

And that may be the best it brings
but the surprise may be another -
if the baggage is full of AIDS
it could kill you, brother.

Yes, choices come with baggage,
so give them careful thought.
The choice you make this moment
might later make you distraught.

Choices come with baggage
so be mindful of your next,
for it may bring you naught but woe
and steal your self-respect.

---- This is a work in progress, in preparation for the Spitfire Slam coming up on the 30th of this month. I had considered sharing "hotdogs 4 breakfast", written a year after Daddy's death. Or maybe even the untitled poem included in the next day's post. But the one here just wrote itself as I was on my way to dinner with my stepmom and my paternal aunt. I actually had to pull over at one point so I could physically write down the words engraving themselves on my brain. Wild.