All Good Things

Poem I whipped up for class a few years back.

There came a boy looking
For a reason why not
He walked through the hanging alleys
Damp with summer sweat,
Loud with summer drunks
Asking everyone (who was conscience)
Why not?

And the drunks mumbled,
“Because.”

Along the stretch of an endless highway
Green and brown and barnyard red
Rose on either side.
A single car,
Steaming, hissed to a halt.
He asked everyone (who wasn’t complaining)
Why not?

And the runaways hollered,
“Because.”

He crawled,
Between palm trees and bullets
Surrounded by fools who try to hustle the East.
Green on every side, of every shade,
He asked everyone (who wasn’t dead)
Why not?

And one soldier replied,
“You come asking for a reason why not,
Why not peace, why not freedom,
Why not life?
I’ll tell you
There’s a reason, a reason why not:
Because all good things
Need a reason to stop.”