Give me a student (any student) give me only one definition of success and
only one way to make it give me academic excellence
give me full-time extracurriculars give me part-time job to pay the bills
give me internship followed by internship followed by internship followed by internship
give me a lifetime of debt then tell me I am worthless
tell me my labour is not worth paying for tell me its a favour to hire me
for free go on
tell me I am worthless when in this country
millions of people compete for thousands of jobs
call it their own personal failure when they don't all get one
when the young and the old and the sick have no way into a labour market
ever contracting ever decreasing
when you take money out of their opportunities for education and health
call it their fault call them lazy
call them benefit scroungers call it a “culture of dependency”
go on tell us we are worthless
say it's not political say it's “just the way it is”
that food banks can be cut but banks need be bailed out
that the minimum wage can stagnate and benefits be chucked off entirely
but when the 1% made more off of the first year of the financial crisis
than they had for the 30 years before
call it austerity go on
tell us we are worthless rebrand public failure into personal competition
rebrand it filling your CV rebrand it increasing your skill sets
rebrand it exposure and networking as we rebrand it increasing your skill sets
rebrand it exposure and networking as we volunteer and intern
volunteer and intern digging ourselves ever deeper into debt
ever deeper into despair go on tell us we are worthless
tell me unemployment levels skyrocketing have nothing to do with it
tell me being more likely to end up on the street than in a graduate job has nothing
to do with it go on
tell me we're all middle class now call call centre workers and shelf stackers
garbage handlers and cleaners call one out of five working for less than
the minimum wage which is less than the living wage
“just middle class in the making”?
Go on tell us we are worthless
occupy my body as if it were some resource you could use to
raise the GDP broken back from all the heavy lifting
crumbling knees from those hours standing depression and stress from the worry
how will I pay rent this month how will she support kids
how will he pay the medical bills go on
tell us we are worthless tell us the only thing not working about this
system is us