I.
i was lost, so i killed my sanity/ honed my discipline/ trained to solve non-problems chosen by tortured people/ because i thought i needed to/ to amount to what i wanted to be/
(because society tells us to know the ends before we define the means/ and the means are specific/ the means are the same/ the means are specific and the same)
i wade through this wretched system/ where people look into their futures and see blank pages/ where people desperately type with blunt pencils/ unless they’re too stressed or too buzzed or too tired or too dead to see their failure/ or / unless they’re gods/
(and there are always a few gods/and everyone hates the gods/ everyone envies the gods/ everyone has wanted to murder the gods/ but no one has/ but no one can)
the state of the system: contradiction in and of itself/ amorphous, square/ rigid, fuzzy/ cotton candy, turned to chocking hazard/ park bench, turned to avalanche/ sprinkler, turned to hurricane/
(study, turned to survival.)
II.
dangle job carrots from classroom ceilings/ too far out of reach/ what’s in reach: long sticks/ stick equals: obscure guidelines/ stick equals: disastrous midterm/ stick equals: impossible workload/ stick equals: disastrous final/ stick equals:/ equals:
(we only think they’re gods/ but deep inside they’re just like us/ trying/ waiting/ sometimes/ like/ like)
are we supposed to build our own ladders somehow/ climb to heights we never wished to achieve/
(like they’re just as lost as we are/ like they feel the pressures we feel)
why reach for the stars when we have no help to get there/ are we supposed to fly when the ladders fall over/ blame ourselves for the fall back to earth/
(like it’s too much effort to pretend to be immortal.)
III.
sit on divine perches/ let the plebes reap the scars of failed bids for ascendance
(as if icarus never fell from the sky/ as if your wax doesn’t melt as you speak)
being a student: like rushing into the line of fire/ feels like: follow your orders/ feels like: flying cockpits into bombfights/feels like: becoming a swashbuckling kamikaze/sounds like: be a good soldier at all costs, my little boy/ good soldier, read: stressed student/ little boy, read: panicked teenager – slash – almost adult – slash – is adult/
(you pretend you were once god at the peak of your powers/ but forget those powers weren’t transferred to us)
when thrown on the fireground with conflicting orders/ do you save yourself though the towers are burning/ do you rush in though you have no training?/
(read: how do i grow up when all i envision is failure/ read: how do i avoid failing?)
and when i revisit the crime scene ten years later/ tell me: should i feel elated or cry/
(read: how do i grow up?)
Rebecca Kempe is a writer, zinester, and multidisciplinary artist from Ottawa, Ontario. Her plays Each On Our Side and Signal Breakdown were featured in the 2019 and 2021 editions of the Ottawa Youth Infringement Festival, respectively. She is the author of “There’s Nothing to See Here/Nothing Happens Here”, a two-part zine which explores the stagnant (but at times welcome) stillness of the suburbs she grew up in through photography and prose. Her work is forthcoming in flo. More of her work can be found at www.rkempe.ca.
