CHOICE NOT CHOSEN, BUT TAKEN

At birth, my parents envisaged a doctor was born.
The first medical doctor in the family line,
One that will procreate his distinct bloodline;
All these thoughts even before I was one.

At age seven, the thought pattern changed.
"With the way he argues", dad speaks out,
"He'd make a pretty good lawyer for crying out loud";
And so a new career was, upon me, imposed.

The changes in career path happened again when I turned eleven,
While Dad wanted a Pastor to fight the spiritual battles he faced,
Mum needed an Economist to lead the family out of the prevailing economic phase;
And I was thrown into the circus again, just like when I was seven.

And then I turned fifteen,
The ripe age for the University,
Interested only in the workings of electricity;
But this wasn't to be, not when my dad was barely fifty.

Now I am twenty-two,
A graduate of what I know not,
For all the things they wanted me to study, I learnt naught;
They should have realized a long time ago that my choices mattered too.

Now I have become a failure,
For choices taken before I turned ten,
Choices that weren't mine, but still chosen;
For how long can one possibly endure?