Tears were coming down Failure's weathered face

for even the ambitious can't hide from the glaring fact of

their catastrophic fall after a certain age, not even in a mocking society

that tells you to follow your heart and chase your dream,

that anything and everything is possible, as they sincerely

smile in your face while they take your tuition money which

will cost you twenty years of your working life in some corporate

cubicle that is more like an electric chair, where your customers

hold the torture button in case your smile slips or tone drops

as you have a knife to your neck while being one slip up away

from losing your temper along with your job and winding up homeless

which you already had a taste of ten years earlier and vowed never again,

so you cut down your instinct and swallow your dignity along with your pride

swapping one evil for a lesser evil in this world of a million evils,

and yet, in this moment of raw candor, the big tears are silently rolling down

your defeated face as the night comes rolling in through your apartment window

and you can't even get up to turn on the light and maybe turn on some music

or steam something up for dinner to warm yourself, no, you sit there dejected,

exposed wounded prey to Night's purple humors, as the tears taste like sea salt

in your mouth, and you think for a moment you may never get up from your chair

ever again, as how could there possibly be another dawn after a night like this.

© Carlo Zeno 2022

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