Only Reality

     Be it life or death, we crave only reality. 

                                     H.D. Thoreau 

     Humankind cannot bear very much reality… 

                                     T.S. Eliot 

You’d long filled a file tabbed “Reality” 
with reports of any you’d found, 
only events deemed earthbound, 
with no attribution to deity; 
 
you’d lived life beyond most norms 
of social convention, 
meeting the challenge of restrictive forms 
though hinting at mortal rendition, 
 
like a scorpion challenged  
by a ring of fire, jabbing himself 
with his own stinger, taking 
his own life, his only reality.