I trace the contours of this alchemy,
Charting hidden forces in the galaxy.
Alive on a rock in a sky full of stars —
Yet we forget the miracle this is,
Trapped in a system that leaves us with scars,
Driven by need, and devoured by hunger.

Life itself — a quiet kind of magic —
Which makes what follows all the more tragic.
A fire rages, buried deep in me,
Burning in places
No one can see.

For all my striving, for all my wisdom,
I can’t find a way to exist in this system.
I was not born to survive in a cage,
To trade my light for minimum wage.
They ask me to shrink, to silence the song,
But the music inside me is centuries long.

They fear what they can’t understand,
So they hand me a leaflet
And call it a plan.
But I was made of questions,
Of patterns and flame —
Not for this circus
That plays the same game.

Spirit, body, and mind —
I’ve fought to keep them aligned.
Shaped myself like a lump of clay,
Measured my life
One percent a day.

But I toiled under a false premise,
That this world would reward the climb.
And now I’m standing in the wreckage,
Realizing — it never saw me,
Not even one time.

Where is there left for me to turn,
But to step back, and watch it burn?
To deny the world the worth it won’t see.
Let the smoke rise where I once stood —
A ghost made of fire, misunderstood.