To the people asking me why I haven’t bought a house yet (I am in my 20’s)
An uncensored, unedited, messy poem by a frustrated, black immigrant GenZennial navigating the cost of living
I have about £50 left in my bank account (thank God it’s payday).
But I still can’t afford to go back home for my uncle’s funeral.
So let me get this off my chest real quick.
Words are all I have left.
My grief and my trauma are probably the only property I’ll ever own in this lifetime.
But at least it’s mine.
I have a right to let my anger be known.
Especially to you people.
Yes, you.
You lot who like to look at me with your pitying middle class eyes before proceeding to fix the thin line you call a mouth to utter a series of words that have become so unbearably triggering that I’ve somehow managed to memorise it.
You sit within the cosy confines of your poorly constructed new builds, which Mummy and Daddy inevitably helped pay for, and purposely ignore the giant privileged elephant sitting in the drafty room.
When life has been an amalgamation of boxes, displacement, uncertainty, and a lot of fucking money, it is understandable why I would rather eat glass than even entertain listening to your nothing words which spawn from the dutty ignorance you wear on your wrist like a watch.
I am but a guest in a country that has drained my bank account and will to live.
And yet, I must continue because this is what has been sacrificed for me.
The exploitation of my ancestors does not entitle me to anything but misery from this muddacuntry.
Nor do the well wishes from my long-suffering parents and the entirety of their earthly possessions.
The world does not reward hard work.
Nor does it reward good intentions.
You either get lucky or die trying.
Crabs in a barrel.
I am the one at the very bottom, trying to claw and fight my way out.
But there’s the hand of a government doesn’t see people like me as human, keeping me down, keeping me from being great.
They won’t let me live, you see.
And you don’t have to keep fucking reminding me of that fact.
Yapping away about things I should change, about things YOU DID NOT DO to get where you’re at.
As if I alone can even begin to change a system in place solely to oppress me and uplift you.
Ah chance please.
You people don’t even know beyond your own small mind.
Why should you have to?
When your life has already been neatly packaged and tied up with a mortgage, a family, disposable fucking income.
Having problems I would take in a heartbeat just so I could dull the relentless anxiety, grief, anger and frustration that has made a permanent home in my body.
I can’t even have a permanent home.
And yet.
Sometimes I feel sorry for you.
Because whilst my life and my existence transcends borders, yours is small and predictable.
I have a passport full of stamps and an accent that doesn’t match to prove it.
This isn’t about you lot, though.
This is about me.
I can’t afford to sit here and feel sorry for myself.
I am in a period of my life where things are allowed to be messy.
I am allowed to be messy.
Allowed to fall and not want to get back up again.
Allowed to have the most valuable thing I own be my degree.
Allowed to be envious of a life not meant for me.
Allowed to not love the job I thought was my dream.
Allowed to want to run away from everything when life gets hard.
To a beach maybe.
Or a forest.
But it has to be somewhere hot.
Somewhere nice where I don’t feel like I’m being killed and resuscitated every few weeks.
But I’ve got bills to pay.
Contrary to Co–Star, I can’t just up and quit just because I’m going against my divine destiny.
Just because on a molecular level, I cannot stand not to live like this anymore, and it’s physically destroying me.
Because unfortunately there’s a cost.
A cost to living.
Why must living have a cost?
This was not the life promised to me as a child.
I am pushing 30 and already so done with life.
Tired of pretending, tired of suppressing, tired of existing.
But like Raye said, I don’t wanna be alive but I don’t wanna die.
So we gotta keep it moving.
I’m ashamed of who I am.
I hide her away but I know everyone sees.
Just a girl trapped inside a woman she doesn’t want to be.
But the woman I am continues for the sake of the girl within.
Isn’t that what coming into yourself is?
Remembering the girl you once were and using her optimism to persevere despite.
I don’t want to forget her.
I don’t want to forget where I’ve come from.
I can’t forget what I’ve been through to get to this point.
Home ownership means nothing to me if I haven’t found home in myself.
I get scared I’m losing the places I once called home (the memories are becoming blurry).
Losing the person I was.
Was any of it even real.
I’ve already lost too many of my days to sadness and depression.
To feeling powerless and defeated.
The fire inside me grows with each day and I fear it may soon consume me and I’ll lose me too.
So I pick up my paint brush, my pencil and create my ideal life.
In hopes that one day I will be able to crawl into it and finally catch a goddamn break.
