The System Lives

Late night train the last night train; day is done, gone the sun. All rise one by one leave on their merry, sleepy, drunken way.  A night of revelry a night of fun ends with the amble skip walk run to make the last train to catch the last one.  They stand they exit to each get a bus streetcar sidewalk to go their separate ways; once one as a tube of metal it fragments splits explodes into the walking comatose as the system shuts down.  Ripped apart nightly reassembled patchwork daily.  The system lives a harder life than most those I know.

To Gaze

On cool summer days,

I am content but to gaze.

Wind Blows

The doors, walls and windows closed;
the wind blows and nobody knows…

Row by row, desks just so…

With (un)due diligence the students children learners sit idle patient restless row by curséd row desks aligned just so. All face the front pencils in hand notebooks open door shut mouths shut imagination shut. “To learn is a privilege earned. I will learn my maths I will learn my arts I will learn my English as so taught to me by those who know better.”

And so it is wrought line after line so-called punishment torture mindbending to make hate of the world of academia.

Summer

Summer. Classes end, skies brighten and students return home after ten months abroad. The thing is, spending the greater part of a year away from home tends to alter one’s perspective, view on the world, opinions and such. This is true to the extent that going home after the summer, you can return to your life of the previous eighteen years and find you’ve returned to a world that isn’t yours any longer – a home you don’t belong to, a city you find disgusting, people you aren’t familiar with. A place you once claimed as you own – were proud to be from, even – you return to and find you now despise it. You walk the streets wander the city and you see more, notice things you never would have seen before. Your hometown your world your old life is suddenly so very unappealing to you. The people you used to love seeing being knowing now repulse you your only attraction now your new world new life.

This new outlook brings arguments fights anger disagreement with the parents with the siblings with the friends with the ones you love. Arguments escalate words slung bantered thrown out of home in a city now foreign no place to go no place to be no money to return to the new world you now belong.

Forced out without a house without a home without a family in a province across the country from where you now belong. Forced to leave you pack a bag prop a thumb find a ride a way to where you need to be. A truck stops – a shipper from out west – you get on board flip a smile say hullo and you’re on your way back home.