a gray area

a gray area exists when the light dulls &

when it begins to tint this way

we run frantic, like the unluckiest chicken on the

farm,

who’s up next for a beheading---

like roaches scampering from a dry place to a damp one &

though the light is craved by many

the reality is that so many more live in the darkness

wishing, wanting & waiting

for a chance to walk into the gray

with that almost seemingly impossible notion that

the light on the other side

may be open to one more

occupant.

 

crossing through the gray area requires a better hand

than one is born with,

if one wasn’t born with the silver spoon---

it requires those things found necessary to survive

under the man’s pressing thumb

it requires money, ultimately &

in the disease ridden system

which breathes in dollar bills (for now)

in order to get it,

there are a series of steps perpetuated by the old money &

updated, supported & thrust upon the rest of us by the

new money---

 

so that if you stay in school &

if you do well in school &

if you apply to college &

you get into that college &

you don’t drop out from that college &

you do well in that college &

you apply to a grad school, or a med school or a

law school &

you do get into that school &

you do well in that school &

you come out of that school all the better,

you are supposed to be well equipped to

get a job whose pay will correspond to all the years spent

going in & out of schools

keeping your brain to the metal &

putting anything else in your life on hold

until you are ready to make that paper in the

“real world.”

 

but when all your academic struggle is over,

you still have all the debt you accrued while

dreaming

that one day you’d be able to pay it all off,

that one day,

you’d be able to walk through that gray area

from dark to light &

thrive,

like the good capitalist empire has

promised---

in fact, if you have traveled from other countries

believing all the images & stories

from exported american films,

you are in even more dire straits,

for the inability to get a job &

pay off all the debt,

might mean dragging yourself back to your

native country,

now, with a debt the size of jupiter &

nothing but disappointment in the eyes of

all the people who put their beliefs in you

when you decided to move to

“the land of the free.”

 

staring in the mirror

said individual finds themselves stating out loud

(as if anyone was listening)

that “had i known things were going to end up like this,

i never would have tried so hard.”