Note: The coinage “catch-22” comes from the 1961 novel of the same name written by Joseph Heller and describes a scenario in which the rules of the game allow no way out. The image today was created by 1tamara2 on pixabay.com and used under the creative commons license.
TWENTY-TWO
if I say yes to loving you
it will fill my whole life up
even as it stone-face empties me.
if, instead, I should say no,
I am hollowed, yet with hope
of being filled again eventually.
there is no scenario in which
love is not a catch 22–
damned if you don’t, damned if you do.
and yet these dams break oh so differently.
come, then, wild flood of you,
tumble tender-roughshod over me.