Societal grief

I sit in polished classrooms
behind gates and old brick walls,
arriving in quiet cars
that glide past the lines outside.

Money hums beneath everything 
in the marble floors,
in the voices that promise
The future already belongs to us.

From my golden seat
I watch the world below:
a frightened people,
a government that feeds on them.

I read about it in headlines,
hear it whispered in debates
between students who will inherit
what others have to survive.

So I practice the language of concern.
I say the right words
unjust,
tragic,
unacceptable.

But the truth sits heavier than guilt:
none of it reaches me.

The gates close each afternoon.
The engines start.
The city fades behind tinted glass.

And my quiet grief
is not that the world is broken

but that I can watch it break
and still go home untouched.