Failure

Am I Just Good At Pretending

I wanted to live the life of a self-employed man,
 a thousand ideas an hour,
 to shape my schedule to the whims of my plans.

The truth is, the lane
 backs down in the face of a lack of hands.
 Good at everything, a master of none.

I wanted to live the life of an artist,
 like everyone else, I dreamed of it too:
 my name at the top of the bill,
 a book in the best-seller aisle
 of airports long emptied of travelers passing through.

Am I just good at pretending,
 at working for a boss while waiting
 for the holy first of the month?
 A patron of function
 at the cost of creation.

I had that life—I laughed in its face,
 and now I wonder if it wasn’t
 the only thing I truly knew how to do.

That sentence still echoes in me,
 the one that says: 	
 But I think I’ve wandered too long in salaried routine,
 hardly compatible
 with the world of entrepreneurship.