Hopeless Cases

It's ok I suppose to have no future, in a way none of us do, the same finite conclusion meeting us all, life an immeasurably short output of energy in a vastly grandiose and ancient cosmos. But that gets into metaphysical debates about the meaning, or lack thereof, of an existence that is both inconsequentially small and also enormously-consequentially unique. But in a small city in the Midwest where winters come soon and leave late and in a state with a bleeding population, the cold reality is apparent. No degree, few references, no contacts, the kind of person that gets looked at diminutively for years whenever someone asks what I studied, what I majored in, or even if I was going to school. Now that a four year university is an impossible endeavor, two semesters of it costing more than I make in a year, the immediacy of being left behind by the modern economy sets in. I sit at a dead end job making next to nothing simply hoping that maybe in my down time I can stumble upon writing something worthwhile, but I've been writing for 20 years and have nothing to show for it, no publication, no winnings, no name. It's hard to envision another 50 years of this, my only reprieve being that all the drugs and pills and illness I've pumped into my body has cut my lifespan shorter, more manageable, more elegant. My parents know this all; quietly they ask about me going to school several times a month, quietly they tell me they just want me to be able to afford myself an enjoyable life, as if money can fix 13 years of self harm and endless self-deprecatory platitudes about hopelessness. In their desire to see me happy they've run into the same wall I have seen before; there is no happiness, there is no future for people like me, just a cold, dull loneliness, a money-less future, and a 9 hour work day that ends with me, in despair, staring blankly at an LED screen.