Only All This

People tend to buck and shy

Entering the windowless

Stall of singularity,

Of not having any choice,

Being denied fantasy—

If this is the only world,

Never any other life

Other than the life you’ve known,

It seems, somehow, soul-crushing.

You don’t want this or nothing,

Do you, now, do you? You want

Some sort of alternative,

Although you differ on which

Kind of magic is magic—

Which expanding ring to ride

After the wish and the coin—

To only transform yourself

While the world remains the same,

To reform society

While the world remains the same,

To alter humanity

While nature remains the same,

Or to pass through a portal

To a cosmos that isn’t

Even of the same patterns,

Neither for life nor physics,

Maybe somewhere true heaven—

Whatever, you want the choice.

No one squeals with excitement

To not have an afterlife,

To not have other planets

Possible, other systems,

Other, more just, arrangements,

Better selves to aspire to,

Transforming reasons to live.

No one sinks down in relief,

Thank heavens, this is it, this

Body, these hungers, these aches,

These people, this gravity.

Or maybe someone, someone

Finds this only actual,

This only possible, best.

If only this and nothing,

This is, after all, the whole,

Wonderfully not nothing.