Debt

Hurry.
Step on the gas and accelerate
to the indefinite finish line
where a degree in something
guarantees success at the cost of everything.
Eat your ramen noodles and avoid vegetables.
No community to sit ‘round the table
and enjoy a family dinner
paid for, not likely.
Four years of homework and heartache
and professors and finals to take
all the knowledge they offer.
Pull out the bottle stopper
and slam a shot down
and screw your liver.
You didn’t get in a hundred thousand dollars
debt like a cavern
with an endless bottom
just to wind up as a cleaner or something.
You’re better than that. 

Use your degree, they tell us.
Find yourself a job, you lazy man.
The good Lord knows I’m trying,
and in this economy, I’m dying.

Debt.