Tag: change

Student Debt

You want to cancel debt
But you haven’t fixed the problem yet
Will you take away the sports centers
The luxurious salary of tenured professors
The constant updates and new computers

Our debt piles up
While campuses expand
Education inflation
Loans on demand

What does an 18-year-old know of debt
Their brain hasn’t formed yet
Tricking kids into an expensive education
Before they’ve got the information

Can you cancel the problem without a solution
Will you also forgive the exorbitant institution?

Erase the debt, erase the problems
It’s easier to erase them than to solve them

How will we change the education system
For we must change, everything is different
What we now pay doesn’t get us what we want
An education no longer pays the bills
Our debt stays with us until we write our wills

A student comes out with no opportunity
For what do we pay this enormous fee?
When it’s all on the internet for free
Perhaps college should teach financial security
Critical thinking skills could come in handy
How can you cancel debt without reducing the cost
It seems the point has been lost

Wipe the slate clean
For the American dream
You’re forgiveness doesn’t mean a thing
When the colleges are still charging

More than we can pay
Another student takes a loan every day
Just to get through
Without a thought of what this will do
You’ll never to be able to buy a house someday
But all of this we won’t say
A mountain of debt
An unsustainable way

To grow up
To start a future
Does college really pay?

We are paying till the day we die
We can kiss the college dream goodbye
The universities are getting rich in front of our eyes
Do you see what our debt buys?
A stuck generation
Don’t cancel the debt
Cancel the lies

Make the colleges pay the bill
For they are participating in the problem still
Getting fat checks from wealthy alumni
Dedicating buildings, while the rest of us stand by

First make the cost go down
Address the hole we have not stopped digging yet
Until then we will continue to drown
In student debt

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Cancel America

Cancel America
Our cancel culture
Where we can no longer make mistakes
All errors are now public
Forever recorded with high stakes
Forcing us to be censored
Compelling us to be fake

We all must agree
Apparently, that’s the rule in 2020
We can’t have diversity
Of thought, of option
That would be considered a sin

You must say the right thing
Suppress your true feeling
Our values are virtue signaling
We are so afraid of being wrong
It’s easier just to go along
God forbid we offend someone
Say what you’re supposed to say
Ignore the obvious, the science
It’s now more important to belong
The unpopular opinion will just go away

Who gets to have a voice
And who should be silenced
A forced social execution
A quiet violence
Free speech was a milestone
But now you must make a choice
Speak freely without hesitation
Or risk losing your reputation

Whenever someone has a social platform
We dig through their closets
Looking for that one blunder
There’s got to be one
To make their career go under
Ruining lives one misstep at a time
Social shaming with no chance to rerun
Having the wrong view is a crime
The battle has been won
But by whom? Who has won?
This battle is not fun

Are there any perfect presidents?
Has any leader not made a bad decision?
Who among us has not said something dumb?
At one time we were all young
I’d like to think that we are still growing
We all are embarrassed by something we’ve said
Something we’ve done

Does every great man have a dark past?
Can we judge someone a hundred years later?
For their flaws
Erase their names from our papers
Make them pay at last
Humans have the capacity to love and hate
To build, grow, create
And to destroy, enslave, placate
Denying this is childish
We refuse to allow some to participate
As a punishment
Instead of dealing with our sad state

Cancel America
Where media is king
The only place you can say anything
Social media platforms now have the final say
Policing what we can talk about
Putting people away
How long do we pretend like this is working?

Social media has fallen into the wrong hands
It’s too complex, too big
No one understands
How to make it work best
We’ve failed the social test

Tear down all the reminders
Rename mountains and towns
Change the maps
Paint over murals
Move our history around
Dance around truths
And make it seem sound

Can history be erased?
Can we cancel all we don’t agree with?
Wipe it clean
The person who said it might be mean
But they are still here
They haven’t gone away
We can’t take away a voice
But somehow we must make them pay

The more we suppress
We fuel the flames of unrest
We must be able to have an honest
Conversation about our humanness
Our darkness
The flaws of our nation

For if we can’t be honest
If we can’t speak freely
If I’m offended by every opinion
That doesn’t suit me
How can I really listen?
Blinded by reality
We’ve become the emperor with no clothes
When we will address the actual issue
Who knows

How can we tell the truth about our history
If we can’t talk about our mistakes
Since we can’t talk about what we’ve done wrong
It has followed us all along

Cancel America
And our genocidal ways
Make all our ancestors pay
For their greed and cruelty
Double standards that haven’t quite gone away

Cancel America
Cancel our culture
False advertisement of democracy and peace
We could be honest at least
America is a vulture
That eats the poor, the less fortunate
And finds any reason to go to war
But hides it from the people
Yet we pretend that we are equal
We are happy and great
Occasionally we catch a glimpse of our fate

And we don’t like what we see
It’s like reality TV
Except it’s real
There’s no sex appeal

We can’t change by lying
We don’t learn by suppressing the truth
Let’s start by applying
What we learned in our youth

You can’t erase a mistake
We are all human
We need to have an open conversation
Acknowledge the beauty and the flaws
Acknowledge our weakness and silly laws
Hopefully, this gives us pause

To address what has gone wrong
We’ve known all along
This is just a distraction
A bad reaction

The adults have all left the room
And not a minute too soon
It’s easier to create a new problem
Then to address what we’ve failed to do

Cancel America
Cancel culture
Soon the only safe sculpture
Will be not human
In the future
It cannot take place
Can we become neutral
To save our face?

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Dementia

Your mind is a traitor that has betrayed you
It has left behind a body
But stolen your personality
Your ability to have a conversation
Your presence is here
Although not really

We all pretend like you are the same
What you have created still stands
Surrounded by your family
Reminiscing about who you used to be
Your wisdom and generosity

I found you a different person
Robbed of your energy
Greif with a side of dementia
To remember again
To be reminded again
Just to go back into that far away world
The fuzzy place of your childhood
A false memory that does no good

You look at me with blank eyes
Not seeing me
And ask where your soul is
Where he is
What can I say
Nothing I say can make it better

I don’t want to remind you
You know he is not here
Your heart breaks over and over
Every time you ask
There are no words for this
I’ll hold your hand through the fear
I’ll stay by your side during the loss

There’s an empty chair
And empty bed
Empty after sixty nine years
A house full, but empty at the same time
A table with the centerpiece missing
A room devoid of pictures and light
You can feel that something is different
But can’t place it, can’t explain it
There’s a void next to you every night

The walls have shifted
A desolate wilderness is left behind
You are alone in the desert
An arid land with no reprieve
Trying to find him

You are looking for water
He was your oasis
And has dried up, disappeared
The world has turned upside down
You don’t know where your place is

Your spirit left with him
Your love of so long
I can see it in your eyes
You have already gone

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Invisible

You can’t see me. 

Yet you walk towards me, tell me I’m beautiful, interesting. It only lasts for a minute. This is all you can muster, this moment of interest, effort. Once I reciprocate you stop, you swallow up my kindness, my care, endless compliments and affection. You dissolve in my generosity. 

But I bathe in your desire. I sink deep into being wanted, adored. 

I hide behind this face, my smile, my cool, composed facade. I’m different, not like other girls. Still I don’t get what I want.

I don’t want to change you. I want to change myself, but it’s hard. I want to choose something different, but I keep falling into the same old worn pattern. Do I choose it or does it choose me?

Change is a long slow process. I feel uncomfortable and the feeling passes. But is it different? Have I changed?

I want something, but I don’t know how to get it. 

I heal so slowly.  

I settle for chemistry, your gentle caress feels like love but it’s just sex, raw desire, physical energy. It has to be enough for this moment. My mind knows this, but my spirit does not. I fight with myself, but you don’t see a thing.

It’s just that I’m invisible. My deepest desires cannot be seen.

Only felt, by me.  

I don’t dare tell you what I want. 

It’s a trick. I tricked myself. I lost myself in the silence and forgot this is not what I wanted. I tricked you into thinking I that didn’t care, I’ll settle for this. I tricked myself into thinking that not talking about it is somehow better.

So I make myself invisible, my true desire dies in my silence. 

To get what I want, do I have to give up this silence? 

I dive into the unknown. Again. 

Maybe it will be different this time, I won’t respond. I won’t seek out what hurts me.

Maybe I’ll stop asking you for something you can’t give me. 

Maybe it has nothing to do with me. 

Maybe when I ask for what I need I’ll become visible. 

To the right person. 

I reclaim my energy. 

Over and over again. 

But then I realize,

It’s not you that I want. I just want to seen; to be wanted.

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Water

From the Midwest, to the mountains of Zürich, the rough streets of Johannesburg, to my final destination: picturesque Cape Town, South Africa. How silly of me to think it would be as it was before. The mountains still stand, clouds rolling over the top of Table Mountain like waves, the lively streets are the same, the familiar shops greet me, but it’s different. I’m different. I play my own movies of what was, feelings of another time, I know this change, in fact I’m aware enough to expect it, but now I feel it. Continue reading “Water” →

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I Think I Can

What did I get myself into? How did I end up here? Providence, Rhode Island. Brown. Reoccurring thoughts cart-wheel through my busy mind as I kick up crispy orange/yellow leaves scattered about the old New England campus. The truth is – it’s hard. I’m struggling. When I’m having a hard time, I don’t write. Because what if you knew that I doubted myself? That I questioned if I’m smart enough and capable enough to be here? Maybe I am if I believe I am. Some days I do and others I don’t, but I show up anyway. Continue reading “I Think I Can” →

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Tides

Something is wrong. I wake up in the night with sharp, shooting pains in my stomach and spend the next 2 days on a mattress surrounded by onlookers to my public illness. I don’t care – I’m deliriously sick. I can’t keep anything down, even water makes me violently ill. God, Universe, Something (Italian doctor in Nosy Be) – please make me well again. A remote island isn’t an ideal place to be ill, and the only way to get treated is a nauseous, choppy boat ride to the next biggest island – Nosy Be. Take off your shoes, lay on the cool tile floor in what appears to be a hospital, and enter when you are called in for a blood test. My sickness has a name: Typhoid. Continue reading “Tides” →

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From NYC to Namibia

Namibia is hot- dry hot. Most of the country is uninhabited. The landscape is stunning and always surprises me as I drive up through the Namib desert into the skeleton coast. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the population of 2 million in the entire country, compared to the 8 something million in New York City alone. The two places couldn’t be more different- in New York it’s impossible not to run into someone, in Namibia you must go out of your way to do so. Continue reading “From NYC to Namibia” →

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New Year, New Shoes

My life has gone through a complete transformation this year. This has been the year of change and growth. My job is now different, I have like 75% less stuff, I’m saying goodbye to my home of 4 years, I’ve said buh-bye to my twenties, but there’s one thing I’ve yet to part with. My running shoes- that I’ve had for my entire adult running career- way too long. I can explain (don’t judge me please). Continue reading “New Year, New Shoes” →

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Not That I Should, But I Can

My 30 year old self has been reflecting on what I feel like I ‘should’ do or where I ‘should’ be at my age (I know, I know, I’m not that old, but still). I didn’t think much about time (or how it might be limited) in my twenties, but there are certain societal pressures to ‘be somewhere’ or achieve something at a certain age, whether real or imagined. I had a moment while running in Central Park where I realized it’s not about what I should do, but what I can do. Continue reading “Not That I Should, But I Can” →

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