(Dis)Illusion

School, the setting of a grand illusion/ The time of our lives, a classic delusion/ Where great models and drawings can change the game/ Fabulous designs backed by irrefutable claims/ But soon we face self-doubt and fears/ Accompanied by the usual blood, sweat, and tears/ Protein-bar dinners and a skipped shower/ An eighth coffee at the eleventh hour/ The alarm goes off before I sleep/ But there are many promises to keep/ What good is a model still incomplete?/ I inhale fumes from fresh-cut acrylic sheets/ Panicking as I wait for it to glue/ Hoping to make it to my own review//

Chin up, pin up, shine, and grin/ The stage is set, let the performance begin/ Dressed in black and charm and wit, we’re thrown into the paprika pit/ The voluble, verbose narrative starts/ The critics scrutinize lines on charts/ With bated breath I await their judgement/ Thinking of rebuttals to circumvent/ They say “replace practicality with a noble cause”/ The end is marked by polite applause/ Everything’s over and it’s all fine/ Time for ceremonial cheese and wine//

Now we all attend a talk where stalwarts assess/ With inspiring rhetoric, how we’ll clear up the mess/ By shaping and steering the city’s aesthetic/ And building utopias brick by brick/ Assuming that laypersons’ eyes will caress/ Our imaginations of milestones and endless progress/ Meticulous framing with poststructural rationality/ Or is it just another effigy in the midst of banality?//

In school, we learned of all the –isms/ Once out, how should we deal with the schism?/ Between the disillusion of practice and the illusion of school/ If we didn’t anticipate this, we’d surely be fools/ Aware of the exploitation we’ll experience or witness/ Overworked, underpaid, one couldn’t care less/ Numb to the grids of commercial homes/ Designed for paychecks to pay off pending loans/ The profession is subjugated by the rigmarole/ Which part is stone and which part is soul?//

Yet, we participate in this pseudoreality/ Conjecturing the building, the block, and the city/ There is no art in making a clone/ To stand apart you must stand alone/ Meanwhile, we shall continue to mope/ But in this mist, we hang onto a hope/ Of a face whose eyes will some day admire/ A nameless rampart that will endure and inspire//

Trapped in the dichotomy of the illusion we chose/ Here are a few words of consolation I propose/ In the illusion there is no liberation/ In the existent there is no close//