This is a need-based scholarship, and you don't qualify

Flew the nest? Nah, 
I was nudged out by a rough wing
Lucky the air currents caught me
But where they took me
Is not where I want to be
 
$7.25 an hour 
Was never meant to be a living wage,
Especially for someone
Buying a future, too
(And, on occasion,
Feeding a poor boyfriend)
 
"Your father makes too much"
Fuck my father's wages,
They don't help me anyway
$80,000 a year and he's still in debt
He won't help me.
 
"What about your mother?"
Dead for eight years now
Her wages don't matter either.
 
"What about loans?"
What about debt?
I will not become a slave
Giving up my hard-earned future
For some corporation.
 
I don't get handouts
I don't deserve them
I need them
 
And all my friends with higher-paying jobs
And worse-off parents
Get enough extra to buy cars and game systems
While I sit and starve
 
Whose idea was it
To force someone to pay out the nose
In order to get a good-paying job
And whose idea was it
To make our first twenty years,
When we are the most foolish,
The foundation of our entire lives?

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