Future Worker

Grown up, tell me how...

Tell me how you earn your bread

And how you pay your overhead.

Do you sometimes wish that you were dead?

Grown up, how do you earn the dough

To buy gas so your car will go?

D'you sell your soul --- say it's not so!

Grown up, I've got to know.

When I'm full grown...

I will have to go to work,

To pay for underwear and shirts.

Grown up, tell me, will it hurt?

Tell me I will find my destiny,

That they'll want to use the best in me!

Grown up, please confess to me,

Will I go to waste?

Are your thoughts well hid?

D'you always do as you are bid?

Please say you live as heroes did,

Not zeroes who built pyramids.

Tell me that I'll find my place,

That life's not just a rigged rat-race,

That I'll not be a nameless face.

Tell me I won't go to waste.

Grown up, speak up now.

Please tell me that there is more

To life than simply paying for

The right to live for one day more.

Is all work just a boring chore?

Tell me, grown up, what's in store.

Is the chance to live worth living for?

'Cause grown up, if the answer's "No,"

Help make sure I never grow!

(c) 1987, 2009 Aya Katz

This poem first appeared in A Child Possessed. It is inspired by the Julia Ecklar filksong "Survivor's Song."