Finally, the time comes.
Irrevocably.
Never the same way twice.
And the going isn't easy.              

                                    Each tries to make the other
                                        think the blame belongs 
                                           exclusively to him.
                                               And so it does.

                                            I hardly even tried

I'm past the point of that.
How could I presume to finalize
what maybe never should have been.

                                                       I started in 
                                                       not knowing who I am
                                                       when was it, never mind.
                                                       I dwell too much on me.

Still now we don't know
one or the other
and that's as good a way
to end as start.

                                       There is nothing
                                       you or me
                                       or either one of us can say;

                     Beyond hello before goodbye
                          there should be a sting of words
                                      or one long paragraph
                                                   to make the ending easy.

I'm so amazed at finding out
my head still reels
under even friendly blows
that I'm determined
not to let the boxer
or the battler
come in close again.                                  

                                      Nor will I go out              
                                      into the evening anymore
                                      and place myself within
                                      that enchanted circle of the hunters.
                                      The moving staircase
                                      Or the rain.

I have so little permanency
and not much time left up ahead
I ought to stay at home
behind the iron gates
and rainbow glass.
Sure places I've constructed.

                                                         It's quiet there
                                                         and best of all
                                             the disappointments yet to come
                                                can be lived by me in private.
                                

No one need ever know
if the wounds are fatal
or if I'm waiting out some healing time.

                                                     There is an emptiness
                                                           and it is deep.
                                                         A wound so old
                                                  that healing wouldn't work.

If I have not yet
come back around
to where I started
then I am only inches
from that narrow corridor
that will bring me there.        

                                           Relief I feel,
                                           I'll not deny it.
                                           But there's a sorrow too
                                           as though the world was finally
                                           slipping from me, and away.

Perspective, I have none.
      Sorrow - there isn't any.
           Plans? What plans could I have
               except to live here for a time
                     until I know

                                       It's finally time to go.

                         Rod McKuen ("Moment to Moment" 1974)