The charades of living

If you were prepared,
If you had all the training,
All the wisdom,
At the starting line,
Maybe, just maybe, you could have
Come away a winner.

But life gives you a deceptively open plain of choices,
A horizon that glimmers with excitement,
And then it hides how you are expected to fight—
With both hands tied behind your back,
With distractions,
With a blurred-out future,
With a thousand starts
And only an exceptional follow-through.

Those who hitched their fate to your life force
Slowly turn away from you.
And only when life has peeled, one layer at a time,
Away the charades of living,
Do you finally understand your missteps,
Your delusions,
And, at last, the road you should have taken.