Somewhere between wanting too much and losing it all

where i find god, where i find myself

i’ve always been a little too greedy for life. i wanted to do big things, talk about big ideas, become a big name

i’d run after lofty visions, and when the ambition inevitably outlasted the means for realizing them, there would be another void to fill and another craze to chase

i thought i could do it all at one point, as do all young, proud people

it didn’t seem too far-fetched at the time to think i could get everything i wanted just because i had delusion and my naani’s duas on my side

icarus could’ve told you about my haal, the fool that he was

i don’t entirely blame him for flying too close to the sun. he, too, was young, ambitious, and a little too arrogant for his own good

he could have told you that directionless desperation makes a reasonable man lose his head, and what is ambition if not desperation in a noble suit holding a compass?

it wasn’t until i also flew a little too high and ended up melting the wax wings that i learned the price of misguided, insatiable determination. reaching your fingers out in too many directions will make everything slip right through them

wings gone, sand in my mouth, a bag of bruised ego on my back

crawling through alleyways of desolation where the only way out is through

heckled by wellwishers and naysayers alike, but it doesn’t matter because they all eventually quiet down and just stare as i stumble drunkenly forward

shedding the same hubris that made khosrow shred an invitation to divine salvation

at the end of the alleyway and on my knees is where i meet god

He shows me why khosrow fell, disgraced and drowning in the most splendid riches. shows me what i could have turned into

a slave has nothing if he has only himself, but he finds everything he needs if he surrenders himself before the end of the alleyway

i don’t build a new pair of wings, venturing to the sun was a fruitless endeavor and blinding in more ways than one

i continue the journey on foot, perhaps i’ll meet myself at the end of the next alley