Discrepant Awareness Alex Fleck

I wrote this poem while filing at the Dictionary of Old English, a process that’s a fairly obvious influence on my thinking herein.
I’m not as depressed as it sounds, though. I promise.
Enjoy!

What are these things we do
That take our lives?
We’re agents acted on
And then surprised
When we are ended,
Finished and undone,
Emptied in the fullness of our works.

***

A paradoxical question that influenced this poem: how can we be performative agents and yet feel possessed or manipulated by the very things we do?
Is it something to do with the necessities behind our actions, or do they really take on a metaphysical life of their own and begin controlling us until we’re just the puppets of those things that we create or intend.