We either climb the ladder or we break it

(Note: Trying something new! This is an edited version of a poem I wrote my senior year of high school.)

So we ask, Who creates these justly unjust rules? And under bitter, hushed voices we conspire
We gossip and we contradict ourselves because it’s not okay when they do it
But it is when we do
Let’s meet over tea and a glorious summer day to say,
She only got in because of her money, to assert that the world doesn’t work for us like that,
That, We actually had to work hard, that
No one deserves it like we do, and we’ll feel the heat on our backs and necks
And we smile because How nice it is to be tan
And we don’t think twice about it

We try on trends and grow out of them, and we’re at the beach
On the sand, musing about how Nobody swims anymore, what a shame!
Laughter engulfs our frames and for a second we look longingly at the water
Like we should get up right now and jump in
But we don’t, because it’s nice on the sand;
Besides, everyone is on the sand
Besides, the water is cold and we don’t want to swim anyway.

Instead we sit and we talk, we talk political correctness,
We swipe through Instagram and find exactly what we are looking for, and we smile because Oh my God I can’t believe he said that, I would never say such a thing 
We agree with each other and we lay back shaking our heads
But at least we agree
We’re in it together, in the inside, and that’s all that matters.

And so finally, the time comes to choose
We either climb the ladder or we break it
So you grasp on and step up

It’s going so well, you think, I did everything like they told me to
So you think
You went to college like they said, a good one too, and you got a job and you proved that voice inside your head that you could do it, you came so far, you can do anything;
You can do everything.

And now you are living it, the dream they had dreamt for you,
Step after step in the wheel that they kept for you,
But at least you’re in it
You’re a few breaths too late when you start to imagine
A life free of the fears you didn’t know you were trapped in
But at least you succeeded, you did well, you did it.

We either climb the ladder or we rebuild it
And you look down from the top of this ladder that was never made for you anyway and think, How far a drop from here.