i never bought the whole dark academia thing.
sure, ****** and drugs and *** are torrid and dark when you're from a rich family,
when you've never woken up to the news of your childhood best friend being shot to death,
when you haven't seen your family and friends fall into the seductive cesspool of opioid addiction,
when half of your class was pregnant by the time senior year rolled around.
the academic upper class thinks what working class kids go through is sexier when the backdrop of the overdose is chandeliers and silk,
instead of a small town parking lot at 3am.
my aesthetic reality of academia is scholarships, it's leather jackets and nicotine addictions
it's having the only fifteen-year-old car in the campus parking lot and hoping to find a plug before the first week of classes.
it's not sleeping between work and class and partying. it's being the only one whose dad isn't buddies with the guy giving me an internship.
it's lonely. it's the crippling loneliness of not understanding upper class social cues,
it's reading crime and punishment in the slivers of time between work and work and class and more work
and emphasizing with raskalnikov so much it makes your teeth ache.
it's coughing up blood.
it's having health insurance for the first time in college and still not using it.
it's drowning, it's fighting, it's violent and heroic and painful and
never knowing
if you'll actually
make it.

If, I were Indian
I would be A. P. J.
AbdulKalam
descendant son
          And, to  be
          Gandhi's legatee

To marry a young
Nigerian senorita, to
give birth a pretty
And beautiful baby

To copy all I imitated
From my fore fathers
To lead Nigeria and, to
revolutionize the nation

To grow more than
Russia and to be
Like Saudi Arabia

Walking home from school, holding  my book bag as the other kids drove by

My payless shoes and eager smile weren't enough for them to wave goodbye

We walked to the grocery store, school and church
Dreaming of a day where I could look down from their smug perch

A nerdy kid so embarrassed of my life
Wanting so badly to fit in without all the pain and strife

Lonely so many times just wanting a friend
With parents so perplexing, so rigid never willing to bend

No car, no fun, no hope, no bed
No home, no money, no rest, no bread

Now I walk for fun, for exercise for peace
Ironically I walk away the sorrow-each step a release

In the rituals
of the life of struggle,
they work the blue collar jobs
of their parents-
grilled cheese, fries,
a shitbox used car,
scratch tickets duds,
so many of no frills,
so many barely getting by.

I walked in a mask
A dead baby bird keeping me company.

It had see-through skin
and told me how
Rich people have wider sidewalks
And richer dont have any

We stopped to ***** in their gardens

I listened as I walked
Crushing something under my heel,
I didn't look.

I felt.

The heat of the flames
The smoke swells through the mask
I can't see the fire yet,
But it's coming.

When your urge to forgive
Overpowers and violates my
Blessed and Righteous wrath
Remember
Rainbows are only allowed
After the torrent has finished ravaging
And mourning

Rainbows are only allowed
After the torrent has finished ravaging
And mourning

Wanting so much, quickly turns to too much
Those who have much, don’t know what to do with so much
Greed and envy they invite
Long talks with eyes, that have seen too much
Hungry mouths on streets, empty bellies, cold feet, fake smiles, and sweaty palms
Street signs held by those who took too much
Left with nothing while standing for nothing
Victims of decisions
Living under a vision full of nightmares
Old scars that trace back to bad choices
Squeezing pennies out of dollars
While others throw dollars at hurt lovers
Wanting too much but not willing to pay attention, Life is a long sentence
And meditation is study hall
We are stuck identifying classes
But lack chemistry
Quick to jump to conclusions
like mathematicians
While producing too much in biology
Knowing about the human anatomy but fail to know who we ought to be
Let’s tip the scale and see what would happen if the have nots had more
And the rich were broke would that increase global peace or is that too much to ask for