and you?

i punched my hands in my jeans pockets today riding down the elevator to another monday morning and out came a wrinkly crumpled receipt; it musta been important cause it was in my left pocket (that's where i keep important stuff), but there was nothing on it. just a blank white void staring back at me. it musta been through the wash a couple of times, cause the edges were frayed and the fabric brittle but oh-never-mind, it had nothing on it. like me. worn out by another cycle, another time through the wash. rehashed. nothing to say really anymore because it's all the same shit. same same same like so. you hear people who chase their dreams and succeed all the time (never give up or give in! you can do it, too, just take the risk!) but when do you ever hear about those poor losers who chase their dreams and fail? those dumb blokes who are blinded by the sugary misleading (evil) dreams of being happy! who's really happy? for every single person who've made it, who are at the top of their games, there are thousands who fall by the wayside, dropping through the cracks, who become jaded and resentful at the lives they gave up for their dreams. burnt-out musician sitting on the a cardboard box playing to a testy audience waiting for the subway. snarling waitress with her plastic boobs, sagging now, waiting on pimple faced boys snorting ketchup through straws. balding writer writing copies for a radio jingle about lugnuts and a "new season for home improvement, clearance prices!" - all have chased their dreams. but at least they did it, huh? they tried, they know, they failed. no regrets, i'm sure. there are 8 million people in new york city, all trying to make it, to make something out of their measly gray lives. doormen, mistresses, students, bouncers, waiters, prostitutes, hairdressers. so what? cooks, valets, performers, writers, musicians, artists, models, bankers, accountants, tailors, butchers, delivery boys, pimps, politicians, thieves, oh and on and on. and how many, out of the 8 million, will realize their dreams? it's a cruel vicious world with only so much happiness - so much success - to go around. it's a zero sum game and not everyone is playing fair. who are you to say that you're any different than the defeated souls hovering on the crooked sidewalks? you're smart? thousands, millions of smart brains ready to shoot up your neurons up. sexy? models struggle to get by each day, hungry for a chance to show their breasts and their hips and their talents to producers for two-bit exercise infomercials. ambitious? humorous? there are thousands just like you, better possibly. it's all a game of luck. you're dealt the cards, and the it's all about ante up. it's about the risk of losing the house, of cutting yourself to the marrow, take what's given to you and shove it back at all the fuckers who have better hands, of throwing your chips on the table, of bluffing your way to another round, another day to play the game - it's about random acts of mercy by an ironic God who looks down at his folorn creation, wondering how the heck things are so fucked up, it's about the unexplainable, unidentifiable voice inside that tells you to keep on going and not look back or around even when everything is meaningless and pointless. or, it's about folding and taking that nice cubicle with an option for a office in five years, then perhaps that mortgage in seven years and so on. life is a big itch that i can't scratch.