Why is it that the best ideas
are the ones most easily forgotten,
and the most important details
the ones always overlooked?

Why is it that the most impossible dreams
are the ones we want the most
and the easiest course
never leads anywhere good?

Why do you always have too much to do
with no time to do it,
yet when you do find spare time
you can find nothing to do?

Why does nothing rhyme with orange?

Why this separation of races
when we all end the same, formless?
Why wars over pieces of land
that are made of the same planet and same air?

Why do we pay actors for their pretense
more than teachers get for giving knowledge?
Why give wealth to those who already have it
when there are homeless and hungry all around?

Why the insistence on appearance
when all fades to dust with time?
Why the quest for possessions
that amount to nothing in the next life?

Why is true love so hard to find?

Why is it always cold in winter,
even if the sun is shining brightly?
Why can birds and insects still fly
when it's pouring down rain?

Why is it that society can be
both good and evil at the same time?
In a place of freedom,
why is individualism punished?

Why do stickers and bubbles
never fail to bring laughter?
Why do you still haunt me
even though you're gone?

Why can't anything be simple anymore?

01/01/2001

Author's Note: written 4 years ago, revised 2001

Posted on 09/20/2002
Copyright © 2025 Amanda J Cobb