I’m living a jigsaw puzzle life.
Pieces of me lie scattered all across the table:
a like here, a pet peeve there, a hobby across the plane.
I’m not sure how they all fit together,
and there’s no picture on the box to show
what I’m supposed to look like.
I wish there were; living would be much easier if I knew
where to go, what to do, who to like, what to be.
Because there’s so much power in deciding these things.
I’m living my high school dreams.
The pieces I was fitting together then
are the same ones I’m playing with now.
That scene is almost complete,
but the sides of the puzzle remain
unfinished;
in fact, I can’t find the corners.
I’m just one long edge stretching on indefinitely
with no right angle to guide me
to the next line.
Life is a mystery.
Not a cozy one you can solve in an hour,
but a long affair that you may never solve.
Some of the pieces have yet to reveal themselves
and no matter how much I try—when I die
the finished piece will hang for all to see,
holes in the frame and all.
And maybe that’s okay, because it means
I didn’t spend my years chasing perfection.