My life is a game of hide and seek.

I’ve been looking for Happiness,
Stability,
Purpose,
in a game
that has taken twenty years four months and five days to play.
I still haven't found them.
And calling Oxen free won’t change a thing.
So far, I've looked for
Happiness on my facebook page
Stability at the bottom of a resume
and Purpose scribbled somewhere into my schedule.
Instead I found hand-me-down formalities
and hollow thoughts.

So I started searching in other places.
I looked
in my mother’s advice-
something that she never seems to run out of,

I’ve looked in the smiles of people
that were as important to me
as an *****
that happened to live outside of my body.
I leaned on them until I had forgotten
what it was like
to use my own muscles.

I even tried to put myself
in someone else's shadow.
But you can only hold your breath for so long.

It is uncomfortable;
fitting yourself into someone else's life.
Like a dress that one size too small
you wear it anyways and hope
that no one looks at you
long enough to notice something is off.
You tug and pull the fabric
trying to get it to cover parts of yourself
you think the world isn’t supposed to see.
But it will not budge.

Sometimes I can't help but wonder
if I am on a train heading in the wrong direction
on tracks that someone else has laid down for me.
They say that Manifest Destiny drove men West,
so I will follow the tug in my chest
and use instinct as my compass.
even if it means
jumping off that train.
I may end up with scrapes and bruises
but I know I’ll be one step closer
by watching it disappear.
The game goes on.
And there are so many places
I haven’t looked yet.