Poetry and Short Stories

Settle and die

What am I looking for? Searching for?

I seem to be constantly trying to obtain something that's never in reach, or in reach, but never enough.

Why am I incomplete without it? Have I been conditioned to feel empty without perfection? Have I been raised to keep taking until everything runs out?

I sit here and everything is different. Every movie I've watched, every book I've read told me that I was like this, that one day I'd find him and my life would just fall into place, that everything would just work out.

But they didn't say what happens after. What happens when the camera stops filming? When the last page is turned? When everything is perfect, what next? Does life just keep going? Do we all get sick of it and move on? Does it start all over again?

Little girls have been bred to find their Prince Charming, we've been told for decades that all that matters is true love and once you find it your whole life will get better and you'll never feel a single day of pain ever again, no more mopping floors, no more cleaning cottages, no more being locked away and kept in the dark, once he rescues you, it all disappears.

But what a cruel way to train our minds, our hearts. We are told that no one is ever enough unless they make your life perfect, so we look at the boy in front of us and say no, we look at the man on his knee and say no, we look at our mirrors and say no, we look but we don't see. We'll never see, because our world is forever condemned to be a comparison to something we will never have.

So unhappiness awaits. When the camera stops filming, when the last page turns, reality starts. We all go back to our sad, dull, love-less lives and we dream of another world. We start the cycle again until we settle for less or until the dust settles over our graves.

We settle, and we die.