I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by double shifts at diners, starving for healthcare and more than just an hourly wage plus tips,
dragging themselves home from work at dawn from another late shift at the bar, over-educated hipsters burning for a job in writing, publishing, graphic design,
whose poverty came not from their lack of effort but from a recession caused by previous generations’ need for greed,
who bared their brains to underpaid professors desperate for tenure,
who passed through universities with high grades and many extracurriculars hoping these would lead to a career,
who were expelled from school with a degree and little hope, who cowered in shared apartments angry that a roommate ate their last frozen pizza,
who got busted for comping a friends’ meal,
who ate only ramen and drank only water for the months they were unemployed, with dreams, with drinks, with a pile of lies instead of stock options,
who will die with student loan debt still stacked high against them,
who send out twenty resumes a day with no response,
who have been rejected from unpaid internships,
who quit smoking because it cost too much and drink only pbr on their own couches,
women who spent their last paycheck on the pencil skirts and heels required for job interviews, men who hang themselves in neckties for a chance at stability,
who have spent their lives building resumes, job experience, education, for a chance at living in this world, creating something or being a bank teller or personal assistant, stuck in coffee shops, french restaurants, Chipotle,
with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies.
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