The Real World
When will you come back to the Real World, they ask
And what will you do when you do?
The American way they nod Yes
Up and down up and down in understanding
Of this “Real World” they address.
As if the Real World is a thing outside of em-tee-vee,
Wants to say the millennial
Raised on Tila Tequila and metaphysics.
As if the Real World is a bubble where you learn how to Get By,
Soaped up with so much money
Too much money
Don’t know what to do with the money
They build the birds a home not the students.
No one learns to fly.
When will you come back to the Real World, they ask
And don’t you feel behind?
Behind on the body count of serotonin
Killed by micro-fracture and macro-transaction,
Behind on ten-dollar wages and twelve-dollar lunches
Behind on social-scaling up the side of the World Trade Center
Or down the back of Le Bain,
Waiting in line for lines.
Or waiting on line, whatever it is We say.
I don’t know how you do it, they say
And Only You could do it.
Only You could live in a place where
The sky is split open by sunlight not skyscrapers,
Pierced with the white peaks of Pirin
And the great white finger of
Your grandmother’s God.
I don’t know how you do it, how you
Dine with old friends turned strangers
Turned friends again by the mere oddity of Being an American Here,
How you listen to the husband’s well-rehearsed speech on why
His garage wine is the best garage wine.
It must be so hard, they say.
It is unreal but also awful,
All so awful, they say
To be floating far from Home.
As if you cannot be grounded in ground that did not grow you,
As if songs without symmetry seldom make a sound,
As if forbidden toes dipped in sacred lakes make no ripple
If a tourist never tells,
If the toes do not point West,
If the heels don’t click for Home.
Olivia Melodia is currently an English Teaching Assistant and BEST coach in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. She is aggressively proud of being from New Jersey and refuses to identify as a New Yorker, despite years of speed-walking and living in Midtown. Olivia attended Hamilton College and studied Philosophy, Hispanic Studies, and theatre.
To return to Issue I, please follow this link.
