Two roads diverged, and I, not being Robert Frost, walked down both at once at the same time.

The first step spread my legs as I straddled the rift. The next spread me farther apart, and at the third, I cracked at the crotch and split up the middle.

I must have been a sight for sore eyes, one leg walking, one arm, and half a brain, and on the other road, the other half.

I felt the strain of being apart, hoped the roads would converge, and I could rejoin myself in the middle at the junction.

I imagined it to be like Doctor Doolittle and the floating island which had split away from the mainland, and then, with the currents of vicissitude and recovered history, the floating island bumped back into the mainland at the exact point of departure and fit perfectly, even the split tree which joined its other half.

I could see that, in my case, this was not to be, as the roads continued to diverge and I was losing touch with myself.

So I stopped in my tracks, looked at myself on both sides, backed up, retraced my steps and rejoined myself at the crossroads, the fork in the road.

I muttered to myself and the empty air, since no one else but me was there, rhyming to stitch together divergent lines of language, “These politicians on the right and left of the body politic, prattle about joining in the middle. They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve done it, so I know.

I paused to catch my breath before it got away from my formerly bifurcated lungs, and thought philosophically with one reunited mind.

In the real world, when there are two sides, they are rarely equal. Trying to make it so can lead to self-destruction.

There’s right and there’s wrong. They are not equal. I choose right.

There’s left and there’s right. But when right is wrong, I choose what’s left.

I choose good over bad, love over hate.

I have learned to integrate.