Boxes and Lines

There're lines everywhere:
markings on the road,
plaster on the roof,
flags in the water,
stars in the sky,

Nothing's free:
there are boundaries,
there are cost.
You pay,
you run,
you try to burrow under
all the laws
of the world.

But you're just human.
We're just human:
a handful of seven billion people.

Ants are ten billion billion
and the same lines that are only a step away
in the sand, for us, are a lifetime away
for them.

Who's got more freedom? Us or ants?
I'd have to say the ants
and the costs? Their costs are the crumbs
we can do nothing with but brush
from our clothes.
Ants don't even need clothes.

We're few. We're expensive
commodities hanging in our cages
at the zoo.
We're well-fed, well-kept,
make do with our coffin's width of room
or just pretend we can't see them.

That works fine. Dreams blur
and human eyes are crap:
some don't see the lines.
Hearts are crap too:
we can believe they're not there
and then work them right to death.
More than half a million people
work their hearts too hard.

Dreams are well and good but you won't get them:
that's why they're dreams.
Dream big. Dream outside the box,
but you've got a foot in the coffin already
and if you stick your arms through the bars, they'll chop them
right off. Isn't that right?

I'll keep my hands in the coffin.
I'll need them to climb
when the lid comes off.

Written for the Writing Challenge Contest (The Review Game), October/November 2017.
Prompt: "Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV?" Rick and Morty season 1, episode 8 ("Rixty Minutes")