Life ain’t soccer
Your enemies don’t get warnings
When they put you down
And when they really beat you
They sure as hell
Don’t get rejected from your life

Life ain’t soccer
At fifty, when you’re half way through—
You don’t some extra time
To think about and fix what
You may have really, really screwed
You don’t get a halftime
To think up your next game plan
And consider what you want to change
Before you go out fighting

Life ain’t soccer
When everything picks up heat
And you don’t quite tag along
You don’t get a water break
To reconcile your thoughts
You don’t get to pause
Cause everything then adds up
(too many loans anybody?)

Life ain’t soccer
When all is done, good or bad,
And you’re drawing to an end
You’ve neither won nor lost
At this game of life
You don’t get additional time
To fix what you can mend
You don’t get the stat sheet
Of how many times you kissed
And loved
And drew
And wrote
And did everything you wanted

But life is still a game
A tireless un-pausable game
Just a mystery and a maze
That you endure, no pun intended,
Until the end of your days.