The Sand Beneath Our Feet

Pull a string, a puppet stirs.
A gust of wind, your paper walls collapse.
— lovers, the cat, the job —
all bound by threads so thin,
so laughable.

One misstep, one phone call,
one distant tragedy miles away —
a nameless boy, a fallen tree —
and suddenly your world tips.
The front tire spins loose,
the bed disappears,
love turns to dust.

Nothing is yours —
not the walls, not the air,
not even the drumbeat of your own heart.
It pounds because it must,
not because you own it.

But the mind —
the mind is yours:
your judgment, your will,
your quiet refusal to kneel.
Anchor yourself there,
in what cannot be stripped away,
where no one enters uninvited.

And if that, too, dissolves?
Then you are already gone,
and it no longer matters.