We do not choose the world that bears our weight,
nor shape the hour that meets us at the door.
We enter lives already bound by fate,
but choose the ground on which we rise or floor.
We do not pick the body or its cage,
nor mark the map that names our origin.
We start enclosed by history and age,
yet carve a self that’s ours beneath the skin.
We cannot choose the walls that form our days,
nor shift the cold inheritance they cast.
We find ourselves arranged in given ways,
but choose the stance that outlasts what is past.
We do not rule the terms that shape our start,
nor bargain with the limits we are in.
We’re born to circumstance beyond our art,
but character is forged by that within.
The world begins the story without us,
its terms imposed before we learn their spin.
But what we hold, what shape we make, is trust—
the choice of who we are, and where we stand within.