I am 22 years old and I just don’t care.

Because my future needs an education that puts me face to face with a necessary evil called debt. But even if I was handed a million dollars, no money could buy a brain pre programed with all the secrets math keeps from me.  My professors speak the universal language of science so lyrically as it rolls of his tongue but the opened become closed and the continuous become discontinuous permitting me to derive the meaning of why I am still here, doing what I do. But then I look to the left and see the unfortunate on streets playing on empty cans trying to fill empty hearts with something more meaningful than filling empty wallets. And I look to my right and notice a group unworthy and unappreciative that slither by on money taken from my hardworking ass and I realize because they live on welfare, I must say fare well because I do what I do to make something of myself.

But I am 22 years old and I just don’t care.

Because as much as an elevated future is encouraged, my family grounds me to the harsh reality of the need of an emotionally invested life.  Religion, God, Sin, and Morals are to never be forgotten about. SO now I have to worry about the present in order to worry about the future of my future – life after death. I need to know if I should pray with my hands together or arms crossed. Should I worship the son, the vessel or maybe none? I am told only one is right and its important to know which because eternity in paradise is way better than eternity in a lake of fire but what if they are all correct? Then what happens? I need to know answers

But I am 22 years old and I just don’t care.

Because it’s easy to see us in retrospect, bodies ornamented with cuts and bruises layered on each other thinking they’re product from the attempt of chiseling our name deep into mother nature’s face, scarring her for future generations, but are truly from slamming into the glass wall, glass ceiling, glass floor…..from pounding against this glass fucking box we were born in; like crows breaking their beaks on the deceptively clean partition separating human and beast. At least the crow ends with a good twitch or two. We create lineage. We build foundations on hope that the next will be stronger and wiser. We raise the next hoping to imbed a code to bypass the mistakes me made ourselves but we forget, even the most cunning algorithm couldn’t avoid life’s shitty combinatorics.

But I am 22 years old and I just don’t care.

Because, since I am a girl, I have certain standards I have to abide by. I can’t have too much fun unless I want to seem lose. I can’t be too reserved because then I might be stuck up. I can’t be too stern because I might be seen as a bitch. I can’t be too happy because then I might be ditsy. I must stand straight, otherwise I lack confidence.  But the truth is I’m reserved because I am fine exactly where  I am at. I look down because I’m thinking or listening but listening doesn’t always require someone to be talking. I’m quiet because I’m okay if people don’t hear me; I believe I won’t go unnoticed by those meant to be in my life. And I am happy because I know everything happens for a reason – even if we cant presume that reason. but these truths are shadowed by the clichéd role society imposes.

But I am just 22 years old.