Greatness is a prophecy that has haunted me

Hounded and hunted for all this high potential

Till I felt less a person, more ornamental

Like I was merely a trophy one can expose

Always striving to impress, never in repose.

Unsurprisingly, this is enough to depress.

I plummeted from grace just like a shooting star

Or perhaps like a general losing a war

Each achievement is battle then, again, drums pound

I am once more called to best myself at their sound.

Stress is a staccato rhythm I always know

As everything I do must be done without flaw

Running myself into the ground, I try to awe

Still it feels like I can’t, any footing, regain

As I move faster through monotonous terrain.

The weight of expectations others have is this:

I should ascend higher and flow without ebbing

Stay poised in perfection, success never ending

Always rising, I’m always rising towards more

But no one has answers when asked what I climb for.

There came a day I overcame a mountain’s peak.

I cheered at its summit, then saw I was too spent

To even try to initiate a descent.

Thought performance’s pinnacle can’t be surpassed

I’m stranded in triumphant, so here I must last.