April 11th — Ladders, Snakes and the Art of Forgetting

April 11th arrives
like a board game spilled across the floor,
ladders leaning toward impossible heights,
snakes coiled in patient spirals,
waiting for the moment
you think you understand the rules.

It is a day of ascents and descents,
of sudden rises
and quiet collapses,
of climbing toward something
you can’t quite name
and sliding back into memories
you thought you had outgrown.

The ladders are everywhere today:
leaning against the shed,
against the sky,
against the soft architecture
of your own intentions.
They promise elevation,
perspective,
a glimpse of the world
from a rung you’ve never touched.

But the snakes,
oh, the snakes,
they move differently.
They are not malicious.
They are not warnings.
They are simply reminders
that gravity has its own opinions
about your ambitions.

And in the middle of this
cosmic children’s game,
you discover things
in your pockets
you didn’t know you were carrying:
a receipt from a life you no longer live,
a key to a door that no longer exists,
a feather from a bird
that might have been a dream,
a name you once loved
and forgot to bury.

April 11th is a day
that teaches forgetting
as a form of grace.
Not erasure
just the gentle loosening
of what no longer needs
to cling to you.

Living and letting die
is the quiet law of this day.
Not dramatic,
not tragic,
just the soft acceptance
that some things climb,
some things slide,
and some things simply
stop moving.

The ladders reach upward
into a sky that pretends
to be infinite.
The snakes curl downward
into the soil
where old stories go to rest.

And you,
caught between ascent and descent,
between memory and release,
stand there with your hands
in your pockets,
feeling the small relics
of forgotten days
and realizing
that letting go
is its own kind of ladder.

April 11th ends
with no winner,
no loser,
just the quiet understanding
that life is played
on a board
that rearranges itself
every night.

And still,
we climb.