When we jump from academia’s ivory tower
Will we break when our feet hit the ground?
Will our artists’ dreams die, starved one by one,
Our pens turned from writing, our pencils from drawing
To write memos, take lunch orders, sign checks.

Or will we dust ourselves off and keep going?
Knowing that, since time began, it has been like this.
Pens that write memos can still write stories.
Pencils that take orders can still sketch.
In margins, on scraps, we’ll steal the time we need.