Old Habits

I prefer my room door closed,

even when I'm alone in the house. A habit

I picked up as a masturbating teen.

Here, I know what I have. There are no skies

nor horizons to doubt.

Once, I wished for a bigger room,

not for the space, but for the larger scope

of certainty. Perhaps, this is the same

reason why the people prefer to live

in houses: there is so much to fear

in the endlessness of the outside. Given a wish

now, it would be to reduce the world

into the limitation of a closed room.

A fish may want to walk on land

but it doesn't mean it's going to happen.
There is something in the way.
A general, who was told he had no reputation

to protect, attempted to clear his name
by taking his own life. Futile,
the fish said. He thinks he has better
chances winning a marathon. But whatever
works. Winners try, not cry. The general
thinks that life is in the way.
People judge the fish for wanting
to walk, and so the fish judge
the general with a death penalty. The fish
began dreaming when he saw a puddle
and people started walking on it.

(An Elegy for the Angelo T. Reyes)