Tired of the Future

How can you be tired
Of what has not yet happened?
How can you lament
What has not yet come to pass?
And what satisfaction
Can meditating on it bring,
Since no one can say
What the future will hold?

Yes, you say,
To worry about it is folly,
And rightly so,
But if you look at the present,
There can be no hope for the future.
All that is left,
Is misery
And destitution.

The end result of any life,
Not matter how great, is still death,
And the persistent limitations
Of our winner-take-all system
Means penury
For all but a lucky few.
And, my, the jokes on them too!
For fortunes, like lives, are neither spared.

I wish I had hopeful words,
But no, this is an open-ended lament.
For there can be no hope,
When considering what's to come.
I am tired of the future,
Before it has yet begun,
And when I look on babes.
Still nursing at the breast,

I see not hope
But tireless misery/
Why were they born?
To what will their life amount?
I am jealous now
Of them that have passed,
And those
That were spared being born.

Theirs is happiness.
And those that have life,
Well, they are not blessed
For the terrible responsibility.
To make worthwhile
This time on Earth,
Is too great for any
But the luckiest among us.

Take away the future
I pray
Take away the many tomorrows
That birth terrible beasts
They will stalk you
And they will kill your dreams
Stillborn in your breast
And then they will eat you whole