A Life Observed

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

What if this life,
this body we drag from sun to sun,
is but a rat in a glass cage,
a blinking cursor in some celestial ledger—
every breath recorded, every thought observed?

What if we are test subjects—
spines bent beneath a lab coat’s gaze,
skin marked with the ink of unseen hands,
our joys and griefs nothing but data
to be studied, tallied, compared?

Some are born into hunger,
where rice is measured by the gram,
where the stomach folds in on itself
like a withering leaf,
where nights are lullabied by the gnawing
of an empty gut.

Others live like kings,
wrapped in silk and soft light,
where fruit ripens in golden bowls,
where ceilings stretch higher than the sky,
where suffering is something seen,
never felt.

Some live caged,
their days dictated by alarms and ledgers,
by clocks that carve their names into stone.
They walk in straight lines, speak in hushed tones,
move like cogs, breathe like ghosts.

Others roam unchained,
fast cars and open borders,
no curfews, no consequence,
their laughter bouncing off walls
that never hold them in.

What if humility is just a number—
a life lived on bended knee,
pockets turned inside out,
a plate set down for another mouth,
while arrogance is a throne,
a suit stitched in cruelty,
a mouth that speaks
but never listens?

And what if, beyond this,
beyond the concrete and dust,
beyond the cities that burn and rise,
there is something greater—
a place where our lives are but specks
on a sheet of glass,
figures on a page,
molecules in a petri dish?

Are we the makers,
or the made?
Do we choose,
or are we chosen?

And if this is an experiment,
if we are only shadows cast
by something larger,
then tell me—

Who is watching?