“Everything happens for a reason”
is what you tell yourself
when there’s nothing else to say.

One morning
you burn your toast
and trip out the front door
and miss the train just as it leaves the station
but it’s okay 
because there’s a reason.

Maybe you’ll see reports later today
that the train you just missed
ended up crashing
and you’ll think
“that’s why,
that’s the reason.”

(The train does not crash.
but there must be a good reason.)

You watch people and places and chances,
far too many of each,
filter through your fingers–
sand in an hourglass with no bottom.
Everything slips away,
but that’s just what happens,
and there’s got to be a reason.

You watch the world burn
in more ways than one
while other people watch the same thing
and turn a blind eye
and there can’t possibly be a reason
for any of this
but it’s happening
so there
has to be.

You clutch the bathroom counter
hard enough that it should crack
just like your mind
as you repeat the mantra

“Everything happens for a reason.

Everything
happens for a reason.

Everything
happens
for a reason.

Everything
happens
for
a reason.

Everything.
happens.
for.
a.

reason.

So many things have happened
and maybe one day
you’ll know the reasons.

but if you dont–

then there must be
a reason for that
too?