Life is a team sport. We play a game where it seems that, eventually, everyone cheats or bends the rules to get ahead. There is plenty for everyone, but we create scarcity. Scarcity creates need, and need forces you to play. Who runs the game, or is there only the game? I fear that my goodwill and hope and joy might be used up by the many unscrupulous players I encounter, and I might be depleted and forget who I am, and become an empty shell, filled with nothing but empty space, total nothingness, before I am allowed to die!

There’s an empty space where my heart used to be, 
and a hazy void grows unchecked behind my eyes.
A spent life spreads prone between my early dreams and me, 
not like a bridge, but as a line, dotted with damn lies.

“I love you” was a common line I heard too many a time, 
uttered by those filled with a desire to feed a need.
I offered much of me as trade for that deceiving crime; 
time, nickel, and dime, with my own wants often cede.

“A vote for me is a vote for peace” another common dupe,
beamed into my face as a high-definition man in a suit.
Once they got from me what they needed to be installed, 
they became like god, unreachable, uncaring, and me the ignored!

“Work hard and live well’ sounded plausible and swell,
but reality proved to be a very deep and singular well,
where all drew life using their allotted length of rope.
Many fools, like me, offering pieces of theirs to help others cope.

“God loves you” was the biggest libel of them all, 
spewed by money-loving fiction weavers from pulpits tall.
Free will and lifetimes demanded and happily given,
so we, the believers, might be accepted by him who is supposedly risen.

Life must be thus: a group of traveling souls on a bus, 
scheming and fighting to satisfy hunger, need, and lust,
trying to make it to the end of the line without losing themselves, 
to arrive at the final stop still knowing who they are.