Spring Cleaning (poem)

What would you leave behind

if you could clean your mind

like a house every spring?

Would you abandon your pain,

throw out your anger,

and banish your guilt?

Would you light a fire,

throw in unpleasant memories

and dark thoughts with them?

Would you destroy all of this,

along with your self-hatred,

so that you would be cleansed?

Or would you stand on the bridge,

watch the river run by,

wondering how far the drop is?

Would you stand there for hours

in contemplative silence,

wondering how cold the water is?

Would you look down from the edge

and decide with one jump

to throw it all away?

-Zero