No Leg Up

27 October 2024

Gaze with me into this crystal ball
and see people asleep. They really believe
they're in heaven. Just look at them slumber,
as if they have banished all danger,
as if there will be no more pain. I choose
honesty, even when it must be ugly, and even
when others exclude me for it. Life's better
without the charade of success, the mirage
that the race ends with prizes, and not,
as it must, with return to the dust for us all,
with no leg up for those who have climbed.