I am haunted,
Haunted by ghosts.
'Could have been', 'Should have been',
'Could be', and 'Should be' 
Are their names.
Alas, it is only these four
That fill my lonesome days.

'Could have been',
'Could have been',
How pitiful you are!
Your grandiose wishes
Were crushed by
Circumstance and chance.

'Should have been'
Shushes all others,
A pearl among the gems.
He lies like a carcass
Hewn for the hounds, helpless.

'Could be' is the cruellest of them all,
A cry to the present,
But to 'face thyself' is to 'face thy enemy',
'Tis but a cascading conquest.

'Should be' is the sternest,
The shrillest of the four,
The future is in her hands,
Though the past is set in stone.

These companions, mine,
Seem to enter the eye
Only in the depths of Night,
To flow like sand under a rock,
Wasting hours of my life.

– Maya Desdemona