#POETRY 21

Twenty-One

I just got started:

Community college class-load

Part-time employed

Starving student vegetable rice dinners

Cheap tennis-shoes

Growing out dyed hair

Retro-fied hippy wardrobe

Minimum payment on maxed out credit cards

Running slippery rain hills

Boyfriend at the 4-year university

Push start Volkswagon Super-beetle.

I went on to waste my time in various ways,

70's disco themed parties,

Hippy to office appropriate to yoga culture

Moving states,

Changing boyfriends and bedroom furniture

and jobs and careers,

Having choices.

You no longer have choices:

Ended in dirty lands

Filthy wounds

Too soon is a fucking understatement and a crime to say.

As I saw your name and age

Amongst the list

Of 33, 31, and places like Idaho

Hunting, Simi Valley

Families never getting their prayers answered

Hopes smashed

Dreams of college education

Gone.

What happens to that money that should have gone

To community college class-loads

Vegetable rice dinners

And cheap tennis-shoes to run in

Slippery rain hills?

Your names now on a list

That is far too long

And too often forgotten

When we can’t be pulled away long enough

From being entertained

To recognize the sacrifice

The loss of dreams

The elimination of choice

So we can still think we have one.