they don’t pay you a living wage
they pay you a survival wage
they make you a junkie to the nine to five
you don’t notice it is really an eight to six
the hour for lunch that they don’t pay you for but ignore you working through
the greatest myth was that they freed the slaves
they didn’t free them
they just seductively enslaved the masses instead
we all seem free when we all have the shackles on our wrists
they gave us weekends off so we would spend our earned nickels on the products we manufacture in their name
they drink the coffee while we slough about in the grounds
thankful for every moldy grain
they never freed the slaves at all they laughed
they made us all into them
and we ate it up like the good little servants we are
the masters grow fatter while we fight over scraps
and do it happily in the name of freedom
we dress nice to make a good first impression
they judge us on our punctuality
and pay us but a pittance of the actual profits they take
staring down at the workers from ivory towers and commending themselves on a job well done
we work the fields while they sit in the plantation house
and don’t bother complaining
they will grind you up into the slop they serve the rest and a line of suckers are waiting for you to fall
they didn’t free the slaves
no
they changed the diction
rewrote the narrative
so when we all became slaves we did it gratefully
they didn’t free the slaves
they enslaved us all in the name of commerce
and we gobbled it up and asked for more
where were you when they killed the middle class
where were you when they made corporations people too
mother jones led the coal miner minors to march on washington
we couldn’t get time off to mourn the working class
and those that spoke up were blacklisted and tossed down the burn chute
they poison the waters we drink from
then sell us the antidote at a three hundred percent mark up
they use the tax cuts to purchase more stock
artificially inflating the value on the backs of those that created it
so when they tell you how the forefathers freed the slaves
while our parents work themselves to death
chained to the time clock instead of their beds
just because you fasten the chains with your own willing hands
it doesn’t make you less of a slave
they still count the silverware when your back is turned
and check your pockets as you leave
tell them you know the truth
they didn’t free the slaves
they rebranded them into workers