Only lovers left alive

"How can you have lived for so long and still not get it? This self-obsession is a waste of living. It could be spent on surviving things, appreciating nature, nurturing kindness and friendship, and dancing!"

What would you do if you lived forever? Would you be living like a vampire learning and loving in a time-transcending way or like a zombie half dead rotting away? Would you be absorbing the world around you over its centuries of existence for all it has to offer or would you let yourself absorbed and consumed with self-obsession? It doesn't really matter if you grasp the essence of life being about quality and not quantity and wouldn't be bored for a day or for a thousand years. 

everybody knows

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed ,the poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes, everybody knows.
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking, everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling ,like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets, everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose, everybody knows.
Everybody knows that you love me baby, everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful, Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet,

but there were so many people you just had to meet, without your clothes, and everybody knows.
And everybody knows that it's now or never, everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever, ah when you've done a line or two.
Everybody knows the deal is rotten, Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows and everybody knows.

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming, everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead but there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose what everybody knows.

the fig tree

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. (S.P.)