blind men, bullpen.
Why does failure come with flow?
They’re both only feelings,
ascertained by chemicals in our brain.
I sit— typing, sure— but it’s mostly just tapping.
Tap, tap, tapping away on a screen.
Watching things I think I follow,
while begging them to follow me back.
Watching a like count that just won’t grow,
never sleeping but having nothing to show.
And if I don’t have anything to show, how can I succeed?
It’s really backwards, isn’t it?
They should be holding me up high,
so I can finally reach what’s mine—
Rip it from the heavens.
You feel like a failure because you’re playing a game with no winners—
a game that you were never supposed to play,
a game that’s not even a game.
You thought it was a field.
Maybe the opponent’s turf, sure,
but at least you could study the plays,
and practice, practice, practice.
But it was never a field.
You have blinders on,
one-size goggles projecting
a more optimistic alternate reality.
You’re in a fighting ring.
Like the bullpen in the underground prison scenes
from the films and fiction where the hero saw a mirage—
a peak that was actually a corner.
You’ve backed yourself into it.
But it’s not your fault—
Those blinders were put on you at birth,
and have been growing, growing, growing
with every step you’ve taken on this earth.
They’re heavy—
not just on the eyes but on your mind.
And now that you know they’re there—
how will you remove them?
Do you want to?
Like taxes or insurance or your electric bill,
they seem but a simple trade to make with the man in charge
in exchange for visions of a fair field.
A mirage. Our feet are still trekking through the sludge in the pits—
you can feel it, can’t you?
Your feet are heavy too.
Invisible sensations have taken over you.
Their origin seemingly unknown
but deep down you know the truth.
Beyond those rose-colored goggles is a fight to the death,
and lays the calamity that makes failure feel like flow;
because a winner on the field is a winner in the bullpen—
the lucky blind man who made the fatal blow.
