We have screwed ourselves

I break down
My knees buckle under my own weight
But I gotta keep going on
Its not about looking good anymore
Its not even about living
Its about staying alive
About surviving

The will to live surpasses all else
But this urge doesn’t numb the pain
It just makes it easier to live with

Cry out for help
But none comes
Reach out in despair
But there’s nothing out there
To hold on to
As you find yourself sinking
Into this quagmire

You gotta run as fast as you can
To stay in the same place
They say
The “they” is the omnipresent collective
They tell you what to do
What is right and what’s not
They dictate your life
They own your soul

There are those who crumble
They turn to drugs
They fall apart
And sink into oblivion
They are the ones who
Are inherently weak
They are the ones who
Nevermind…

It’s a dog-eat-dog world
It’s a rat race
Its almost like saying
We are all dogs in a rat race
No wonder the world is such
A messed up place
For dogs do not belong
In an event meant for rats
Yet they are thrust into it
Like square pegs in round holes
Or round pegs in square holes
No matter how you put it
It makes no bloody sense

Re-enforce your knees with steel
You’ll need it to bear the pressure
Of a million dreams that do not belong to you
Weighing down upon your shoulders
On second thought
Re-enforce every load bearing joint
Your shoulders, spine, ankles and all
Lest you fall under the pressure
And get crushed by the dreams
That weren’t yours to begin with

One hears the adages
About dogs and rats
And one begins to wish
That one were a dog or a rat
For their lives seem far more uncomplicated
Compared to ours

We were meant to live
But we make do with existing
I have no idea what’s wrong with us
But something definitely is wrong

“Screw the world”
One is forced to shout
But that is hardly possible
For we need the world to survive
And the world ain’t to blame for this
Sorry state of ours
It is us
We are the ones who have
Confined ourselves in this metal coffin
And unlike wood,
One can’t even claw one’s way out of it
There’s only one conclusion to draw from this:

We have screwed ourselves,
And who can “unscrew” us?
We.