Cages
We live in a land of opportunity, A land where our education is based off of history books and old thoughts, Where we get ranked on how fast we can run, And how accurate a score we can get, Percentages rule me, Numbers govern me, Letters beat me, After they prep us the way they perpetually have, They send us to be further polished and then Its worse, Pick two of the three, sleep , grades, or mental health because you only have the choice between two, And I can’t handle that, Do you hear me? I can’t handle that, We don't have a choice, So then we get a “choice”, Job force or college, The Job force according to present day, According to minimum wage, According to the education system, Will bring me to poverty My destiny? College will get me farther they say, But who are “they” anyway? College will get me astute, Or will it empty my pockets and empty my brain, I can’t appreciate it if I’m paying for it the rest of my life, In this land of opportunity, If I don’t take that opportunity fast enough I get trampled by the others, Reaching, Grabbing, Scraping, Gagging, You see this opportunity is an illusion blanketed by tears, How many nights do I stay up until one day I just Stop, I lose my interest because those opportunities are no longer worth the fever to try and grasp, When your knuckles are white trying to hold on for dear life, And the others are stomping on you, And they press their boot heels into your skin, Kicking, Trying to get some contingency faster, Then I let go... They say that there are other things that you can do, But you don’t want to do the things you are not cut out for, You scream once again saying, I will not take this oppression any longer, And they say Quiet, quiet, And you say sorry, But I’m not saying sorry, I’m saying why can’t you let these “opportunities” be seen for what they really are? Cages. You can easily see through the bars, but you can never leave, Not without the key. |
Cages is a poem about how opportunity can come in many different masks. In this world, you have to hope you'll succeed because you have only a 50/50 chance. Success is hard to achieve when the hero is opportunity but it's merely a villain in disguise. In Cages, we get the perspective of a teenager today wondering how they're going to possibly make it in the world. All of these factors filter into the Experience and how it is viewed.
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