Dev

This poem represents those extremely quick, about-two-seconds-long, thoughts that float into your head during your studies of development. Created by an accumulation of past conversations, words of wisdom, experiences, travels, and overthinking, their brevity doesn't compromise their substance.

Studying.

In my notes I have scribbled “dev.”

What do I mean?

Developed?

Developing?

Development?

What do those even mean?

Unsure, I am devasted…

If I cannot study:

Failure.

If, I fail, I will be unemployed *overreacting*

If, I am unemployed…

What else is there to do in the “developed” world?

_________________________

He told me, “here we work to live”

He is from the developing world

Here, in the developed, “we live to work”

Work.

Study.

Live.

Devastation.

Realization.

Existential crisis.

What am I trying to decipher?

A complex linguistic puzzle born out of a mysterious history, uprooted from its Latin home, spawning a socially constructed understanding, pouring out of the professor’s mouth, infiltrating my ear, arm muscles scribbling memorized symbols with a supposed meaning that means nothing to me and longer…

Developed.

Developing.

Development.

What does it mean?

Why is development the goal

When the happiest soul

May dwell

Just as well

In the underdeveloped world?

With no fancy car, no big house, but enough to keep them smiling

Spending time with family

Family, a concept often forgotten in our selfish world

What is so attractive about a big house that’s not a home?

What is so attractive about a big house that’s not a home, while around the corner, there’s these people we call the “homeless”?

While around the corner there’s corrupt, lying politicians, that are just good actors with more “developed” masks?

While around the corner, a child who never tasted chocolate, got whipped so that you can enjoy the fantasies of developed countries- food galore…*for some.

Big city, Flashing lights

While around the corner someone’s life flashes before them

Much brighter

What is so attractive about the developed world?

What is so attractive about big money, little love?

I am an actress

Acting on a stage, playing the role of a helper to those in need

Luring them in to a place of greed

Before they’ve agreed

I’ve planted the seed

No lovely flower flourishes

Just an unwanted weed.

Even if a developed country were sustainable and could thrive without slavery, child labour, causing climate change, and huge income inequality,

Would it be happy?

What is development?

What is “dev.”?

And why have I made it my goal?

Studying.

#Development