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Thursday, August 30, 2018

Poetry: You Cannot Buy Groceries with Potential


They’ll tell you that you have ‘potential’,
That with the proper degrees and the right resume
You could get it all, make every dream real,
Go up on the stage of life and have your say.

But they’ll only ever whisper in parenthesis,
That this fairy tale had its genesis
In the blackened ashtrays of airless office rooms
Broken bodies lost in the factory fumes.

They’ll say you can be anything you want,
Just so long as your plans don’t interrupt
The 9-hour shift and 3-hour commute
Plus any housekeeping that you can contribute.

They don’t call it a hustle ‘cause it’s easy,
Life ain’t supposed to be breezy
You pay your dues and you bear your cross
And if all else fails, just please the boss.

They’ll say it’s not sleep deprivation,
If at the end of the year you land that promotion.
Creativity is a small price to pay
For petrol, a roof, and a biennial raise.

Cost of living adjustments and dearness allowances
A trade-off for the rose-tinged contact lenses
Of limitless potential and classroom lectures
Beige colored dreams and dead-end conjectures.

It wouldn’t be a ‘job’ if you liked it,
And the rent still needs to be paid.
Power and Wi-Fi aren’t bought with ‘potential’, baby
For those, you need a higher pay grade.

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