the accidental migrant

Seeing your parents
struggle, scrimp, save,
put aside their pleasures
for you,

You grow up thinking
this is the way to be

forgetting, all the while,
that your parents

were first generation
they did it because
they had no choice
because they
couldn't afford not to

And when it is you time
to make it in the world
You put off your pleasures
working too hard
taking the next opportunity available
without thinking
that it is taking you away
from what makes you happy
because it is the only way to be
that you know

and you are left with a dry life.
and unlike your parents,
with no narrative to explain
your dry life