Janus

Janus-like, we have two sides:
expecting, undelivering; wanting, ungiving.
skewed balance coats leather hide,
encasing hopes for life worth living.

beating chests fumble into wells
blindly bumping rocky walls
dislodging nesting birds in cracks
upwardly gazing as they fall.

or dangle over precipices
staring down the foamy waves
rocks below are plushy cushions
that somehow a leap will save.

expecting now to float or land
on spongy clouds and rainbow band
flesh is gashed on jagged outcrops
minds are blown out in the dead drops.

bruised, drowning, broken, bleeding,
tied and dyed by our conquests.
seeking surrender, not our own,
play lost or won, zero sum.