Commodity. Poem by Kim Dang

A civil war rages onwards
between my mind's freedom vs. my
will's institutionalized cage.
Every action premeditated to appease
my academic overlords, my C.V.
Every wavering thought betraying the efficiency
at hand, because I'm wondering.
I ponder outside my self made
cubicle and it deafens me with the
loudest NO.

I'm not allowed!
outside these boundaries
my guilt will hound me
and admittedly as these hours flit by
I'm not as carefree.
I've lost that fight years ago,
when I checked out of my multitasking fantasy
When I left my pipe dreams
at the door and took the keys to room 101 - reality.
And I'm muttering, so bitterly, so audibly,
Dear god help me.

I'm working towards a 9-5, a lifetime of fear induced exercise,
a grotesquely appalling social sacrifice
just so I could take that forced vacation once...in a while?
Encouraged to be consistently industrious, routinely gulping down problems
piling after completion; I'm looking at this glass damn empty
In my solitude, these stacks of paper, these expensive books beside me,
The lack of familiar faces, of warm embraces, it's burning
this yearning to create, to give color to my empty spaces
it's my pinprick, drawing blood, thank god I'm still bleeding
So the insanity won't sediment too quickly
into visible density bands labeled 'quarterlife crises' and 'certified crazy'

What is the main attraction behind accelerated aging
from being worked to death?
To live in a comfortable house I barely see?
To rush quickly home for the last several hours of family?
To travel the world only when I'm young because
we all know it's the only good time opportunity?
Let's take into consideration here, I might not become that celebrity,
So when I'm old and grown, I'll think of the artists, the vagabonds,
the martyrs who had liberty to act on their feelings
- with envy?
I'll consider that homeless man with his absolute freedom and poverty - lucky?
These what-if hyperboles, it's ridiculous to admit they send shivers through me,
How frustratingly haunting.

Voluntary confinement with straight jacket included,
lock the door on your way out of this padded white room.
These are my confessions.
I haven't yet mastered what life demands to be my obsession.
to be everywhere and still own academically, I'm not that machine.
And cowardly I console myself with the prospect of my suffering company.
There are seas of others like me.
Mockingly my mercilessly demanding conscience taunts me,
'You commodity, you one in 1000, don't you worry'

I'll keep on trying but the sacrifice mounts like idle jealousy,
it becomes all consuming if left alone, eventually
And all I can do is whisper,
to no one in particular,
please come save me.