the whole world or nothing

doing some dumb thing
over and over and over again

caught into the stricture
​of what you are supposed to be

molded and melded
into what you are supposed to be

I didn't like this
I didn't like the 8 hour job

I decided
I'd live on the edges of nowhere

rather than do anything at all
rather than become anything labeled

so for fifty years
I was a scarecrow unlabeled

excerpt transcription from an interview with Charles Bukowski