Much worse than me are all the prior versions of myself,
all of them still stumbling through the riddle of identity.
Fate, destiny— both play me like a long lonely chord,
strumming my heartstring, a song both bitter & sweet;
truly the taste of a man’s casual defeat.

See if survival is a means to meet an end, then I’ve met
enough ends to know, each greeting feels like a farewell,
as each rise a false high that drags me lower still. And in
this place where I stand, this ground I call my own, are
the days life slowly feels like hell.

Much worse than me are the questions I can’t outrun:
do I hate myself, or do I hate the eyes that all watch me
through everyone else? “Oh, he sits on his ***, or he’s
someone just to chase ***,” they say— but truth is, I am
more of an *** to myself. Kicking myself for not doing
enough, and beating myself down for doing too much.

Much worse than me is the interference that shapes
me, this half-formed man that I keep trying to correct.
Incomplete, unfinished, still searching— as if figuring
it all out is not my burden alone, but it's the long road
of every man, he must walk.