Fate Knows Not Expectation

I’ve learned fate doesn’t care what we meant to happen.

A painter…

 once told me the trick to abstraction
is accepting that the paint has ambitions of its own.
It runs downhill, chases light, slides into corners
you never meant it to find.
We call it a mistake, but maybe it’s the canvas
telling the truth when we’re too proud to.
Expectation is just a rumor

we whisper to ourselves
about how things should go.

The racetrack…

That bright arena of confidence.
Men bet as if fortune signed a contract with them personally.
They watch the horses break from the gate
like prophets deciphering clouds, imagining certainty
in the flick of a tail.
But the favorite falters, the long shot flies, and the crowd groans.

Courtship...

Isn’t far from that, two people approaching each other
like gamblers approaching a window,
hearts filled with odds that often never quite add up.
The disappointment tastes the same:
dust in the throat, hope folded and stuffed
in a back pocket with old losing tickets.

Industry…

Has its shrine to anticipation.
A new product, a new service, a new pitch polished so smooth
you could see your own reflection in the promise.
Approval seems inevitable, until it isn’t.
The marketplace shrugs, moves on without apology.

Music…

Does the same:
you hum a line, strike a few notes, believing a song is being born.
But some ideas are stillborn;
instead of applause, the paper ends up feeding the fireplace.
We call it failure, though really it’s just the universe
choosing a different arrangement.

Silence…

At the end of the day, silence arrives like a tenant

who never pays but refuses to move out.
Not peaceful silence, the other kind,
the kind that hums like a cracked bell in a steeple,
ringing long after anyone asked for the hour.

You open the door, hoping for softness,
only to be greeted by the digital clatter:
emails begging, texts buzzing, scams gnawing at the edges
of your patience.
You pour a drink, steep in your hot tub,
try to bribe the quiet into staying,
but expectation is a poor negotiator.
It always promises rest, and delivers another long night
of listening to the noise you were certain you’d escaped.

But for some…

Like a restless animal with expectation as its leash pulled tight,

refuses to settle, continuing to float you further into the chaos fate

chooses for you.