My father said, “You cannot go to a college with trust fund children.
You probably don’t see this now, but to them you do not exist
except as props in whom to confide their tiny exasperating irritations
during sprints to Paris over Thanksgiving break.
Even their bodies ripen differently from yours,
embedded layers of cushion protect them from feeling a thing.
“Your wealth is your mind, in nature you discover each day accidentally,
and in my belief in you. I do not mean to disparage the heft of this.
You have finagled ways to lift yourself when you falter or fall.
But remember the sad fact that these people invisibly need what they possess.
They likely tell themselves you can be bought with little expense.
To keep them comfortable.
“You will earn each morsel of comfort,
perspiring throughout the race they have already won.
They will be given what you keep fighting to gain.
And if you should by accident slip into the ranks of them,
someone will notice and hold you down,
remind you of how things work.
“Remind you the select few chosen ones
are higher than you
can dream. You can dream all you can.
The curse that appears a gift that will burn itself out.
“You can house yourself within central nervous systems designed to hatch
held-over dreams. But you will never become one of them.
You will picture that version of truth with breathless excitement,
telling yourself fairness is real after all.
You will breathe each breath you believe they are breathing.
You will reach into the embers for some small medallion
you try to seize and maybe keep, telling yourself
the fiction you are one of them within their routinely privileged lives.”
.
Sheila E. Murphy
.