There’s a secret cheat code
to the universe
or, at least,
America.
I know there is.
I see evidence everywhere.

Others are so effortless
in their success.
Others know how to make money
how to make love
how to make do with dissatisfaction
and make something else out of it.

They’re not smarter than me
or nicer than me
or more righteous
or handsome
or anything else I can understand
but they have the world handed to them.
I get nothing
having to dig ditches with a clay spoon
while they slurp soup from silver.

It’s the code.
It’s the masons.
It’s the dice god rolls
or die cast by fate at birth.
There has to be some explanation
as to why their lives
are like that
while my life is doomed
to be this.