Expectations Poem by Sally Walker

Expectation always leads to
Realization…
Realization that you may not achieve the goals you set for yourself.
That you will exceed them,
Or never even meet them.
A young boy smiles across the playground.
You glare, drowning in your own efforts.
Walking around trying too hard.
Step after step.
Pushing every limit.
While the smiling boy plays his games achieving everything in his life you'd worked to achieve in yours.
Through endless hours
Climbing towers.
With an outstretched hand grasping your final destination.
The one where your purpose is revealed and finally made true.
Only to find it's already been taken.
By someone ungrateful.
Meanwhile you pull every string possible.
To try and achieve the life you dreamed for.
The one that's impossible for you.
You've reached all of your potential,
Yet they still win.
One upping you every day.
If only there were a way.
For you to reach the same ending they did
so effortlessly.
But you're just left messily lost.
Without a wife,
Without a life,
Which could be taken with a single knife.
Pull one rope and end it all.
Or smoke one dope,
Ignore the pain.
Because your main
Expectation of yourself.
Was to succeed in life.
But you didn't.
So what is there?
Your new expectation is to come home.
Only to be shown:
Your own parent's disgust for you.
You're just lazy.
Things start looking dazy.
You look out the window to your right.
Seeing the smiling boy's face.
You bite back your tears.
Fight for all those lost years.
Change plans for careers,
And the expectations have been altered.
You achieve a different life.
With a wife,
No need for a knife.
You've so effortlessly left others behind your tracks in a trail of crushed dreams.
But this time you turn to them.
You say the words the boy before you never did.
You give them hope.
And new sets of expectations.
And the circle continues on in a new light.
Where they no longer fight.
Rather settle.
For simple
Low expectations.