Sometimes I feel like I’m waiting
for the magnetic field
to flip,
and throw the world into chaos.
I’ll live out my life
off the land.
I’ll survive as long as I can.
Then I won’t have to meet
anyone’s great expectations,
and especially not my own.

My mom wants me
to get my doctorate,
but I have a quite a long
way to go.
My dad wants me
to be a sports journalist,
but I learned too much about the media
to want any part in it.
My grandpa wanted me
to be a lawyer,
but I believe more in the laws of nature
than the laws of man.
My teacher wanted me
to be president,
but I believe you can find no justice
in an unjust system.

I want me to change the world,
to rid it of all injustice, of manufactured poverty,
of racism, colonialism, capitalism.
As if there’s some switch out there,
that I could flip.
As if it’s only a matter of finding it.
But I am afraid.
I am afraid that speaking truth to power in this world,
tends to shorten your lifespan.
And I am tired.
In my bones, I carry the weariness of generations
fighting just to survive.

It would be nice to just live.
To have a home, a family,
comfort and abundance.

Sometimes it feels impossible
to do both –
and so I wait.