Blackboard

Your opinion on the chalkboard,

the one your teacher wipes away.

You are just another student, after all.

Who gives a damn about opinions,

when you as a person do not matter?

Stand up, get up, scream!

Refuse to stand down, insistently!

Go to the principal’s office. Go to the dean.

Go to your boss and make a scene.

First time out you get a warning,

Second time out you get detention.

Third time out you get suspension.

Don’t worry about getting too much attention.

Your words are chalk lines on a black board.

Wiped out by someone else’s mind,

a sponge, as they say,

with the capacity to absorb.

~

The Milkman

I often end up staring at walls.

Mostly at the back

of other people’s heads,

when they turn on me,

because I am not in Vogue.

For one hot minute there

I could have been famous.

If only I just gave a damn.

But, honestly, who cares?

The way that people talk with you

when they live that life

is just to satisfy themselves.

They get what they can out of you

to underline their style.

It‘s like people that buy mirrors

to see different reflections of themselves.

They act as if they were something else.

And they expect you to keep step with them.

Narcissism 2.0.

I‘d rather be a milkman.

The milkman doesn‘t hunt down

the latest fashion.

He‘s too busy paying bills.

And he knows exactly why he‘s screwed,

because he has to deal with you.

~

You can’t do that!

“You can’t do that!”

he said, that classmate from school,

warning me about my attitude,

about how I shouldn’t give our teachers

a piece of my mind. “Just think,

what would happen, if you did that

to your future employers.”

Well, I did and I’m still not fucked,

though he prophesied I’d end up

in the gutter,

which might as well be true.

He’s a company manager now.

I read about him in the papers.

Oh, how he would smile

to see me working in the factory.

And pity me for having

depressions

and burn out syndrome,

for working myself

to the bone,

despite a masters degree,

while all he had to do

was duck,

and get on with his life.

All the wealth in his pocket

and the lack of wealth in mine.

It gives me a laugh,

that pain in my back

and the fact that

I’m still standing.

There is something to be said

about living life to the fullest.

There is something to be said,

about not being conquered

by defeat.