What's Your NumberNever Enough

Quo vadis, anima mea? (Where are you going, my soul?) Ad astra, ad astra... (To the stars, to the stars...) Quis est numerus tuus? (What is your number?) Duplum... semper duplum... (Double... always double...) ETIAMNE SATIS EST?! (IS IT EVER ENOUGH?!) Yeah. I was born with a calculator for a heart, every pulse a transaction, A subtraction, a fractional dissatisfaction. Chasing a ghost in a machine, a decimal point dream, Stitching together a fortune but tearing apart at the seam. My ambition’s an algorithm, it never sleeps, it just iterates, Recalculates the deficit, then calmly re-litigates Every choice I ever made on the path to this glass tower, Every sacrificed second for another phantom hour. I came up on a hunger for a life I'd only seen through a screen, A pixelated paradise, a pornographic, green- lit scene of excess, a protest to the tension Of a childhood spent in a different financial dimension. Quo vadis, anima mea? (Where are you going, my soul?) Ad astra, ad astra... (To the stars, to the stars...) They ask me "What's the number?" like it's some kinda holy grail, The master key to cancel out the quiet, constant wail Of inadequacy, the engine of the whole damn chase, A finish line they keep moving all over the place. From a hundred to a thousand, a thousand to a mil, The appetite's a monster that you can't ever fill. You climb the ladder just to find the ladder keeps on growing, The only thing you're sure of is the wind that keeps on blowing You further from the shore, from the kid you were before, The one who only wanted what was on the other side of the door. Now the door is gone, there's only open space, a vacuum I can't stand, With a number-shaped hole burned right into the palm of my hand. It was never 'bout the commas... it was always 'bout the cage, Just trying to buy my freedom, turning another empty page. So what's my number? It’s a phantom, it's a fraud, it's a lie. It's the echo of "more" when you ask your own reflection "why?"