- Maria Fustic
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.