Thoughts from the Last Semester Senior

Parajai

Major: Communication Studies

Four years and eighty thousand dollars later.

Will I have a job waiting for me upon graduation?

This thought creeps into my mental often these days.

I’ve begun projecting my self-doubts onto my self-worth

I’m frightened that I will be forced to conform until my hair lays like theirs,

While my wardrobe becomes confined to a vessel No longer my own.

Will I spend the rest of my life working?

I read an article that outlined the unrealistic commitments

We allot to our professions at the expense of our existence.

I’m puzzled by the mass of uninterested occupiers of earth.

Who will save the trees, while I advocate for education reform?

Who will be the April Ryans’ or Ayanna Howard’s of our generation,

When they ask for proof of our worth?

I saw a man recently, where a point of conversation arose about my inability

To hold a job paying 75,000 as a recent college graduate.

I dream of times where I don’t question

Whether the opposing shades of our skin or the variations in our

Biological makeup elicited his response.

I pray for days

In which google image search returns

No longer require “FOR BLACK GIRLS” at the end

In order to acquire my desired results.

I think it will be okay if I don’t have a job waiting for me.

My worth expands beyond my class,

Leaving me grounded in my roots

So that my interests outsource issues separate from my own.

I’ve vetted my investments.

And I’ll be fine.