Work out the stories that teach 

you how to exist.   Soon.

This is your one life—

never to be lived by anyone else,

never to be repeated even by the self.

You’re old enough to know soon

is now, your story one-off.

Look at all the times you learned the rules

then broke them across your lap—

tenderness in your palms,

a prayer ready for every poem 

and every tremulous storm.  

Allow yourself to make sense of it all.

Your story.  All that life  and still more.