The Weight of Every Choice

The cup you lift, the road you choose to take,

the word you speak that sets another’s course—

each action births a consequence awake,

its echoes branching outward without force.

A hurried step may topple into harm,

a glance away might blind the watchful eye;

your smallest choice can loose a great alarm,

a thread is tugged, and countless others fly.

Though seldom meant, the weight is always near,

a simple "yes" becomes another’s "no."

Behind each kindness hides a subtle fear:

which stranger’s fate did your decision sow?

You do not kill by malice, yet in time,

your footprint marks the edge of someone’s climb.

A coin you spend may cross a bloody sea,

to build the tools of power, war, or trade;

a shirt you wear was stitched in misery,

its woven seams a quiet price unpaid.

You drive, and smoke ascends to taint the air,

the climate shifts, the crops refuse to rise;

a child will starve who never knew your care,

a mother mourns beneath unyielding skies.

Though hands seem clean, the shadow lingers still,

for systems rise on billions of unseen acts;

intention soft, but consequence is ill,

your comfort feeds a ledger void of facts.

To live is to partake in threads of loss,

a buyer bound forever to the cost.

What now appears so harmless, mild, and small—

a casual choice, a fleeting, careless breath—

may centuries from now ignite the fall,

and close a line of lives in silent death.

A forest felled will not at once be missed,

but in its absence storms grow sharp and wild;

a toxin loosed will linger, hard to list,

until it greets a nameless unborn child.

Thus even what you never meant to weave,

what bore no sting when first it left your hand,

returns in ways you scarcely could believe,

reshaping more than you can understand.

The further stretched, the blurrier the thread,

yet still it winds toward the final dead.

Yet let us pause—the story is not one,

for life too flows from choices day by day.

A smile can warm, a hand can guide, a sun

of hope may rise from words you choose to say.

The same long chain that ends in mortal night

is also what sustains the breathing flame;

a meal you buy may keep a soul alight,

a vote you cast may shield the weak from shame.

So though each choice may lead to loss unseen,

it also fosters futures still unknown.

Your shadow falls, but so does light between—

each step both seed and scythe, and both your own.

To live is not to cleanse your hands of strife,

but bear the weight: you deal in death and life.