a breakup letter to stanford university

returnthegayze:

you are eighteen — give or take a few

shots of espresso and one night stands —

and you are sandwiched in the backseat

of the car with the six suitcases you somehow convinced your mother

to let you pack for college — let’s call it,

being upfront to your roommate that you are

coming with baggage

and you never were one for cliches, but you felt

part of something bigger than yourself,

your parents - called it “becoming an adult”

but you called it staying out past your bedtime dancing

called it holding his hand on the street,

called it safe, and sometimes even

freedom

your peers thought you were endearing

for holding onto the y’alls and fixin to’s   —

the relics from your past that you

somehow managed to fit inside,

along with all of their new advice like:

do not eat with your hands, like

do not speak about things that interest you unless you are in a classroom,

like do not speak out,

like do not

so you believed

that this was the way things were supposed to be:

sitting in lecture and mistaking your pulse for a sign of life

mistaking school as an education

now you are twenty one years old

and your grandparents cannot come to graduation

but they tell you that they are so proud of you

that they came to this country and worked here

for this moment — their dandelion seed somehow blown

across the ocean and blooming into a man,

receiving a degree from an elite university

untying his noose and re-tying it as a bow tie

this is how you disguise a skin with a suit

this is how you make brown beautiful

and you smile, the most marketable skill you have learned at stanford:

for they have not taught you to be fluent in the truth

that you have spent the past four years making caves in library basements,

trying to find more excuses not to drop out

that you have spent more time

running away from this campus then letting it teach you how to forget yourself

my university tells me that I have received a degree with distinction

but they will award the same diploma to the boy next to me: the one with one letter

and six figures away from me,

the one who invited a war criminal to speak at dinner sophomore year and called her

“an inspiration,” the one who just accepted a job offer with a business

that left hundreds of thousands of people starving, but at least hires gay people and liked the format of his resume —

the way that the blank parts are so beautiful like the silence

necessary to graduate from a university where we are assigned so much reading that

we forget how to speak, forget how to feel, graduate from a university

where we forget how to poor, forget how to brown, forget how to human

i received an email that our class has

selected mayor bloomberg to be our keynote speaker —

the man who encourages the police to stop and frisk our

brothers in new york and hide them in cages disguised as justice:

who needs papers when our bodies are already the evidence?

the man who tells the press that there are no homeless people in new york because he drowned them all in Sandy or paid them minimum wage to shine his shoes,

dick, and ego all at the same time (let’s call it, efficiency)

It makes so much sense:

the way this university has taught us that our hearts are only

useful if we can sell each beat for a profit:

STOPS its public service with the Haas Center

and FRISKS the activists for more results

STOPS its  education at the demonstrations

and FRISKS the keynotes for tips on how to steal the world

they tell me that i am surrounded by our future leaders

who will clap so hard when bloomberg finishes his speech

because maybe if they are loud enough

they will not hear the growing pains of

our dreams becoming dictators

beliefs becoming bloombergs

So at the ceremony when you see me crying I will pretend that you understand.

So when you post photos from your new office view, your five star restaurants, I will pretend that you understand why I am not there

And when you refuse to see me

And when you refuse to see us

Like Bloomberg and Condoleeza, and all the other bullies you

wanted to become in middle school

Like Hennessey, and Blair, and all the other white men who

designed your curriculum — I mean this empire — and disguised it as an education

We will be outside burning our degrees to keep warm,

But, we, we will finally be happy

Without you

This poem is so intense and filled with so much truth. 

I was at a party tonight where of course we ended up playing Never Have I Ever. After a few of the stereotypical never have I ever done <insert hard drug here> ones, one guy admitted to having done meth in Thailand. And since everyone wanted to hear the story, he went on to describe Thailand as this country with only hard drugs and “loose women” (no slut shaming). I hate how foreigners like to paint the orient as these flat countries that only exist to provide students from the West with drugs, sex and sun on their gap years. 

It disgusts me. I wish I had responded then, but I was seething with hate against these privileged white students. 

I spend way too much of my life going to MUN conferences

"Imagine you’re at a party. A guy offers you a drink. You say no. He says “Come on, one drink!” You say “no thanks.” Later, he brings you a soda. “I know you said you didn’t want a drink, but I was getting one for myself and you looked thirsty.” For you to refuse at this point makes you the asshole. He’s just being nice, right? Predators use the social contract and our own good hearts and fear of being rude against us. If you drink the drink, you’re teaching him that it just takes a little persistence on his part to overcome your “no.” If you say “Really, I appreciate it, but no thanks” and put the drink down and walk away from it, you’re the one who looks rude in that moment. But the fact is, you didn’t ask for the drink and you don’t want the drink and you don’t have to drink it just to make some guy feel validated."

"You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts."

Happy Birthday Mother Lanka

- Yes, let’s celebrate the day the brown raj started ruling instead of the white raj. 

never get on facebook when you’re drunk. bad things always happen. 

rat race?

I feel like everyone’s always ahead of me in this game called life, and I’m always exhausted from trying to catch up with everyone in all aspects.