Not having any

Eating off plastic Rubbermaid lids
and drinking wine straight from the bottle,
using a cardboard box as an ironing board
and making cake pans out of tin foil,
using the one dishtowel until it refuses to absorb -
yeah, you might call it classy,
you might call it cheap
you might call it so pathetic
it makes you want to weep -
but me, I call it being a student,
I call it being a bachelor,
I call it knowing what your priorities are
when so much hangs in the balance of dollars
and nothing comes without a hefty tag -
just depends on how bad you want it,
depends on how mean you're willing to live,
depends on what you can make do and what won't do
the lines between the happy medium and the miserable few.

Is it wrong to kinda like being away from family
during the Christmas season?
It means less presents, less cooking, less pressure
to put on the show of "hey I'm getting by"
while guiltily taking gifts you know are worth
so much more than those brownies you baked the other day -
it doesn't hurt, once in a while, to be away,
to not have to say, "I'm doing OK"
or "school is great!" while knowing that they will never have it straight
what exactly you do, or are getting through.

That's alright, I'm not bitter or saying I mind
that I cringe every time I go grocery shopping -
it's honestly not that bad, I have it good, really,
look at all those who can't afford Christmas -
I just wish it would be the end of assuming
the financial plight of university students;
we're the rich ones, we're the ones who get to see
the end of a four-year's worked-off-ass degree -
while some will barely be able to scrape food off their plate
eating grain by grain the hard-earned gain of true poverty.