When to settle?

She’s scared of being average.

She’s scared of living an ordinary life.

Repulsed of being just another name, in the names

Repulsed of becoming just another face in the crowd.

She is terrified of mediocrity.

She’s also mortified of not being average.

Mortified that she might fall short of an ordinary life.

Worried that the simple privilege of mediocrity could slip away.

Afraid she might not even be that.

She looks up. Then she looks down.

She knows the sky is there to be soared into.

She knows the valley is eyeing her, ready to catch her fall.

The suspension holding her between them feels like an illusion.

Some days, it seems close to the clouds.

Other days, far too close to the pit.

She knows it could vanish with the next step,

so she can’t take it for granted.

But still, this can’t be it.

Or is it?

Her eyes dart from person to person,

analyzing what they have.

Then they turn back on her,

cruelly scrutinizing all that she lacks.

But oh, what if she lost what she has?

Will she only see its worth when it's gone?

She hates her small town.

Hates it simply because it is small.

Because the traffic is messy, the cars are ugly.

Because the pedestrians look out of style,

and the streets are always muddy.

Because everything feels cheap, old, loud, and fake.

Because everyone feels cheap, slow, loud, and fake.

Then she catches her reflection in a building’s window

and realizes

She is from the very town she resents.

She looks like the people she is anguished to escape.

What if she never escapes them?

What if she cannot even live among them?

She is desperate.

Desperate not to live like her parents.

Not to walk like her father.

Not to bend like her mother.

But then she notices herself

running like him, lying down like her.

What if she becomes them?

What if she becomes something even worse?

She feels like she cannot waste a second,

because every second is paid for by a life she resents.

But at the same time, she aches to stop, to breathe.

Because every second is also paid for with a present unlived.

She wants to settle for this while she has it. It might slip away.

But she can’t settle for this, because this is … this is … what is this?

Ambition and surrender fight her, together.

Her desires fold onto themselves, then onto her.

Until fear returns and strips her bare,

leaving her cold to survive,

afraid of wilting, yet aching to thrive.

She wants to let it all go.

This exhausting and ungraceful striving.

She wants to accept whatever comes.

But her eyes fill with tears.

Her fists grip the rope harder.

Because maybe, just maybe,

this is the one worth holding.

She is torn.

Between longing and fear.