We Are Dead Poem by Tebogo Tshegofatso

at first we reckon'd 'this is a necessary rhythm'
we were swindl'd of our mothers' breasts
and promised all sorts of shiny crests,
they push'd and pull'd us towards the system,
we were to spend twelve years in school,
and master there the science of obligation
regardless of the cost of the term's duration,
we humbl'd ourselves and engulf'd the capsule,
little did we know, if we knew anything at all,
that livin' a life of obligation was worse than death,
so we flooded the system of sheer wrath,
and along the way lost the sense of the call,
now we are piles of dead souls, slaves to obligation,
without any real joy or satisfaction.