3 CARDINAL RULES
All Guts, No Glory, Nov. 2020
I. You cannot change people
II. You cannot project the change you want onto people
III. You cannot make people love you
Edicts carved into my coronaries
meant to stick like
thick, sluggish platelets
hoping they’d block up
The urge to run full force ahead
at people, trying to give alms;
plaster all the creaky spots;
listen to the sound of blood
pumping, steady, through
their coronaries
The urge to amend our edicts
when we find something—
someone— worth abandoning the faith
for, like trembling tectonics
The urge to run full force ahead
feeling the blood in your
coronaries, because you feel,
unshakably, that it’s due north
and how might you ever put a cardinal
direction second to personal politics?