What if the world told our stories
exactly as they are
Rather than
what we wished they would be.
What if we didn't romanticize.
Would we feel more free?

What if contentment was valued like gold
and our minds and our bodies ceased to be sold
to the expectations of what is not and what will never be.
Would then we feel more free?

We say we don't want to keep lying,
but we're striving and trying and crying and
Dying.
We tell ourselves that we can't just be
because we constantly search for a fantasy.

Your value is not determined
by what you've done or what you will.
Your reality matters,
both the loud and the still.

So maybe for a moment
you can let yourself breathe.
Just for a moment.
Get swept up in your story.