Graduating Backward

Written in 1991... graduating from college and terrified of the "real world."

I am old for this place.
Pushed through the last year
to climb, and step on, and over,
and through. I have no legs.
I roll around and am cyclic.
Must choose, they say, an
occupation. The buildings try
to win me over. I circle them
and taunt their size.

I smell the seething flesh
of this factory. The pigs scream to me,
Join! Transform! From their tin cans
they succeed. I have no mouth.
I choose nothing and am ridiculed.
Must get, they demand,
to the top. I roll at the bottom
and consider dying before
they make me exist.

I am beginning to see
the exit. Babbitt waits to swallow
me. "We all survive," he calls. "Give me
your hand." I have no arms.
My ample mind swims, drugged,
un-forward. I wait
and am older still. Must see,
I know, my end. It welcomes
no desire and lets me
roll, undetected and away.