When I was little
On TV there used to be
A game called Password,
Where Famous and Forgettable comingled,
Where someone Important, who Knows the Answer,
Would stare into the eyes of the Unimportant, Unknowing,
Say a single word, perhaps “love” or “death,”
And the Unimportant, Unknowing would stare back
And try to guess what they meant,
Try to scrut the inscrutable.
The longer it took to guess right,
The fewer points they got.
Little did I know then
(In my plaid pants, striped shirt, and homemade haircut)
That life would feel like that almost all the time,
That I would be staring into the eyes of those I suppose are All-Knowing, All-Seeing,
Trying to scrut the inscrutable as they say words like
Love and Life and Death.