By Faiz Abdulla
What if things worked out?
What if they went exactly like we planned?
I grasp at straws in a haystack,
drawing conclusions faster than the hummingbird’s wing flaps,
Till eventually, I've piled up before me, my very own stack of straws.
How dare you call this another haystack?
Mine is unique, it's made of straws I've diligently drawn
from a random bunch of straws,
far more precise and meaningful.
What if this new stack of straws, my unique tower of thoughts,
the babel of my crafting, is what my future holds?
What if this thing led to that, and that thing led to the other,
and one after the other, everything fell into place?
What if things worked out?
What if...
The next day I walk back to admire my stack of straws, which I've left next to the mundane haystack of random thoughts,
Cherishing, relishing, almost, the memory of arriving at the best conclusions,
Only, when I arrive, I am stupefied by what I find,
Before me are two haystacks,
Both unbearably random,
Both identical in all but one thing,
One is random by nature of its existence,
And the other is random, despite my meddling and interceptions.