I Am Fortune's Fool

It's happening again...

I can feel it in my heart.
In the emergency reflex that contracts the tendons that pull the muscles and squeeze it like fruit to make it drip out distress-
dripdrip.
drip drip.

We have this repertoire, Fortuna and I.
Dawn's first gasping breath over the edge of the wheel brings the putrid, musky reminder of the toil to come.

It is truly only my recurring dream of clawing desperately at the wood,
being overtaken by the immense weight, and
(finding myself shackled by my wrists to the spoke below me)
diving head first into the ground that awakens me from my pacified, naive state,
and reminds me of the Pleiades,
those ungrateful hens.

Unable to speed or slow the passing of time, I watch, clairvoyant of what is to come.
Of course I struggle (for who wouldn't struggle), but what struggle has ever resulted in peaceful harmony?

I see the course, attempting to learn its steadfast route so I may derail it, change it, or pause--

to live another month at the crest would make the fall so much more bearable

-- it continues as normal, unheeding of my cries.

Protest does nothing but teach me to shout.
Struggling does nothing but teach me to fight.
Acceptance does nothing, but teach me to love.