Ode to Xas

I feel trapped in the bell jar that Sylvia described.
My beauty an enemy of time.

The mirrors that surround
do nothing to reassure, but
compound a poor decision
with something worse.

I thought to shut myself off from the world.
To avoid unhappiness at all costs.
But I realise that
I am sad anyway.

I’ve found that
any emotion is better than none.
Even pain.

Death is twin to life:
if you are born, you must die;
if you are dead, you lived once.

All around me
I see remains of the life I did not live.
Of all the friends I did not make. Of all the money I did not spend.
Of all the love I let pass me by.

Thinking there would be time enough for all,
and now
there is time enough for none.

Except to smoke the cigarette that I abandoned here
before.