Even if we had a road map in this maze
of life we would still get lost.
Reason why?
We all go the way we ultimately want,
even through pitfalls, dead ends
and switchbacks,
Thinking we know better,
feel we know better,
know we know better than
the lines already burned onto
the pages of the past
from the ones who
came before that,
drawing their travels in blood
and then us tearing up the map.

The current oh “wise ones” say, “I see your pain you
went through, sir or madam,
but ya know what? I think I wish
to go through the same
just to see if the outcome
will be different for me.”

And surprise, surprise
it isn’t,
So we cry, we cry
and wonder why
we were all denied
that blue ribbon or
that shiny gold star that others seem so often to attain
Is it perhaps because you never
learned that golden lesson…

Life doesn’t owe you shit.

by Philip Wardlow July, 2024