Doors open.

Push the buttons.

Doors close.

The levers shift with

the weight of it all.

Floor 5, please.

 

Today, it’s Floor Three-and-a-half

stuck somewhere in-between

the black and white, the grey.

 

“Millennials don’t dooo anything!”

the Baby Boomer grad classmate

bemoans, while the Professor raises his

eyebrows at us. “Well?”

Outnumbered, we respond

internally.

 

I can only speak for myself

but I will go to bed hungry again tonight. 

Thirst for knowledge is louder than 

the grumbling.

 
A classmate: My family immigrated here. Our 

home is thousands of miles away. Our friends

will never see the inside of this classroom, 

this avenue they call Freedom. So I’m here. 

 
Portrait of a Millennial who forgot her

purse, who is now stuck in an elevator.

We won’t call it a broken elevator

because it may well rise again,

and we should give it that chance.

 

The purse not in the elevator

holds insulin syringes,

juice in case of

hypoglycemia,

water, notecards,

and responsibilities.

 

Being stuck in an elevator with

type 1 diabetes and no purse

is what anxiety spends your entire life

training you for:

finding a way out when all is lost

in a corn field maze of ridiculousness.

 

PUSH TO CALL

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY!

You push, it calls.

Ringing. No one is home

on the other side. Please

leave a message.

 

You drop to the floor and pray

You pound at the doors but they

are walled shut. Without insulin

life bleeds you dry within hours.

Open the doors! Dooo anything. 

 

This won’t be the first time,

nor the last, when your back is

against the wall.

We’re at Floor Three-and-a-half

There’s still time

We’re just getting started

We’re almost there

 

 

 

No Rules Poetry