Why was I forced to be put on a path
where I would be forced to become
but a fraction of a fraction
of what I could've become?

I've lost so much time, effort, identity,
childhood, and being
to something that might as well
have been a stupid RNG check
before I was even conceived.

Why must my destiny be
at most—at best—
a xerox of a xerox
of what I should've been?

It's infuriating
to live life constantly
nineteen steps behind.

It was possible for me
to only be sixteen steps behind
but my parents thought it a good idea
to force me into an infuriatingly immobilizing zugzwang.

It's like being woken up,
thrown into a track,
and forced to run a marathon—
with one leg and one arm,
blindfolded,
groggily shambling forward,
picking up fallen limbs
and duct taping them on
just to continue.

They say enlightenment and wholeness
are born through misery,
mire,
and malaise.

But how much must I suffer
to get the fucking point?

And despite all this,
I understand—
myself, the world, its faults—
better than most leaders.

It's pathetic.
All of it is.

Reduced to a husk
and forced to gaze
upon the hulls of the world
oblongly waddling
unbothered
and unburdened.

Completely,
utterly,
pathetic.