Steel Factories

We start, starry eyed in hallowed classes;
Arts and crafts, ins and outs,
A light to the strange world we’re kept from.
That “Real World,” you call, far away.
And we grow up, become too old:
That splendor turns to routine
And that magic to bricks
To fill the walls of our minds.

Building a portfolio of gray matter,
Advanced algebras and napoleonic wars.
Conditioned to please and serve
Our gods and our masters,
Our Carnegies and our Rockefellers.
Prepared for the mills of work,
To shred everything that sets us apart.

So we hide ourselves behind the
Steel factories we’re raised for;
Dissuaded from our passions,
Edged into pursuit of stock green papers,
Given a career we don’t want, with a drowned degree and
A warning of that feared “Real World.”

And after we have been bent by their machines,
Our skin bleached and views divided;
We arrive, at last, in that forlorn world.
Confused, lost— taught not to say help.
We dress in suits, talk of business and
Throw away pictures of our children, until
Finally, we are no one.

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