I feel like I owe the world something

For raising me

I mean

Even if I turned out poorly

It doesn’t stop me from worrying

About living up to expectations

Laid like railway tracks

By migrant works so

Manifest Destiny could intersect with reality

Expectations like

Turning on the TV and a show popping on

Or

Pedaling a bike and moving forward

But not falling over

Expectations like

Alarms ringing at the right time

Or

Water boiling on High

Expectations that

Should be natural

And simple

But are more like

Trying to figure out rocket science

Based on the parabola of an old orange peal

Expectations that

Take the lives of young soldiers

Who just can’t figure out their orders

Expectations that

Leave me at 4AM

Sobbing into the carpet strands of my bedroom floor

Curling on my side

In an unintentional metaphor

For my life floundering by

Expectations that

Make you anticipate a breath

Then hit you in the chest

And when you try to breathe again?

It's like realizing a typo after turning an essay in

Or

Getting tetanus despite the vaccination

And yet, I still feel like I owe the world something

It's an obligation like an umbilical cord

It can sustain or strangle

And man,

I don't think I've taken a single breath since the day I was born