Grocery Receipts Make Excellent Bookmarks

This poem came to me as I heading home from one of my classes, and would not leave until I found the commitment to put it on the page and express everything I was feeling from my home situation and the uncertain future that lay just ahead. The format, you might recognize if you're into that whole social media thing, but for now, here's "Grocery Receipts Make Excellent Bookmarks"

My Personal Finance class is finally done! I look up the bus schedule for the last one coming. Just left the station. Time to walk 4 miles home! It's okay, though. With the right atmosphere, the 2 hour journey just flies by. This night, Oldies like "Summer in the City" are my companion For me, walking alone brings a special kind of tranquility, One that invites deep thought. That in mind, I start to read by streetlamp
Hearing a human voice 
Means much to those who feel alone and isolated in the dark. 
Until the racist ads come on. 
Time for some beach sounds!

With the waves filling my ear tubes, 
I cram for tomorrow's quiz.
This time, the chapter discusses 
The rise of 50's era, middle class America

If Leave It To Beaver is to be believed, 
Then everyone then had trivial problems 
Solved within 30 minutes, 
And nobody, then, was miserable, ever

Who cares 
That black people were fighting tooth and nail for basic human rights? 
Who cares 
If everyone was having their roots scrubbed away?

There was no Black, there was no Mexican, 
There was no Irish, there was no Japanese. 
All that was traded in for 1 distinction: 
Being American

As all that history 
Jitterbugged around my brain, 
I realized that for the big steps taken back then, 
It feels like we haven't moved an inch

Joining the dance 
Were the memories of where I live being put on the open housing market, 
And leaving me one step away 
From being homeless

Along with them come the anguish 
Of not only how trying it is just to get a job, 
But that my best shots at it 
Treat their workers the worst

If that's not enough, how about knowing that, 
Even for people with 2 full time jobs, 
Making ends meet 
Is like trying to walk a high wire?

It's when my journey takes me to Stater Bros 
For some Hickory Spam, however, 
That I realize this: 
Grocery receipts make excellent bookmarks 

What's more, 
I got a great night in of both studying and exercise. 
Plus, no matter bad things get, 
I still have a chance to make 'em better

No one ever knows what tomorrow may bring, 
and that's why I enjoy what I had tonight. 
Who cares 
If the mountain's only ever moved an inch?

The only hand to play 
Is the one life deals, 
So why not learn how to work with it the best we can? 
Might even call whatever bluff life has

I know one thing's for certain: 
Whatever happens, I've done more than enough with myself 
To know my scent 
Won't be the scent of broken dreams

It certainly sucks when life pulls the rug from under me, 
But even if I sit and pout, 
Life won't care, 
And will still move on ahead, as should I

I appreciate all the wisdom I'm given, 
& go to sleep every night knowing 
However life turns out tomorrow, 
It let me get the most outta today