Storybook Ending

I love to tell the story
My mind has made for me
To draw it up and decorate
For all the world to see—

The cold gun I didn’t fire,
The lie I almost told,
The boat I never climbed aboard,
The weather remade cold.

Dig, plant, water, stake, weed, I
Grow a world never seen,
Until when morning twilight glows,
I reap it from a dream!

The people? I make my own
Natter as real folk would,
Choose names like an expectant mom
For those who’ll toil as good,

Disruptive souls unhappy
In wrongful circumstances—
Facing the things they’ve left undone
Between God and sour chance.

Like truly deft writers, though,
I know how it will end,
That when they see themselves in this,
I will not have one friend.