Member-only story
The Cards Aren’t in Our Favor
A Poem
take it in stride, be the winner you always wanted to be —
or so they whisper on soggy nights like these
when we’re betting our lives on chances
built from the bottom feeders all the way to the top.
be a man, gotta provide, make that dough —
they’re all just nonsense phrases in a backwards world
that still want to rule over women’s bodies
while telling boys that real men never shed a tear.
take this pill, ace that class, spend that money —
we’re all just building roads we thought were gold brick
but the paint’s chipping and the luster’s fading and
we’re looking at weeds growing between slabs of concrete.
rush, rush, rush, hustle, hustle, hustle —
the beats are staccato, frantic, searching,
while we’re losing our houses and our kids and our ways
and for what — just this foil dream you’ve promised?
well, we peeled back the layers, stripped past the glitz,
and we found rocks we believed were hidden diamonds —
but, whaddya know, it was a scam and it’s true:
the cards were never in our favor after all.
