The city gave me everything I chased:
The corner office and the cultured taste,
The friends who glitter, and the watch that gleams,
The perfect photo of my perfect dreams.
My life is built of glass and polished steel,
Designed to show the world that it is real.
But if you look too closely, you can see
A hairline fracture staring back at me.
It started where I missed my mother’s call,
Another grew the day I sold my art for stall,
A tiny crack for every friend ignored,
For every quiet moment I deplored.
I polish them, I hide them from the light,
I make the surface beautiful and bright.
And people praise the life that I have made,
They see the grand reflection, unafraid.
They only see the shine, they never know,
How deep the cracks in my reflection go,
And that I am the only one who sees,
I’m breaking from a thousand victories.
Poet's Note
I wrote this poem thinking about the immense pressure we face today to present a "perfect" life, especially online. We celebrate achievements and victories, but we rarely talk about their cost. The central idea is that sometimes the very things that make our lives look so polished and successful on the surface are the things that create fractures within us. It's a meditation on the hidden fragility behind a curated image.