Who decided breakfast must be at eight,
lunch at noon, dinner at six?
As if my hunger obeys clocks
and my stomach wears wristwatches.
Who carved the gospel of 9-to-5,
cubicles lined like pews in a church.
As if the sun takes attendance,
and the calendar carves us into neat slices.
Who said sleep must come in eight-hour bricks,
stacked neatly like Lego dreams.
and dreams rolled off conveyor belts.
Who ordained Tuesday to exist at all,
a stray sock in the drawer of weeks,
as if joy were a matching pair
and only discovered on Fridays.
Who wrote the manual of living,
with chapters on eating, working, sleeping,
as if chaos needed scaffolding
and life must march in straight lines.
I want to eat at midnight,
work at dawn, nap at three,
Invent a calendar where
Friday lasts forever.
May be rules are polite inventions
way of saying-
we don’t know what we are doing,
and I refuse to pretend we do.