You Get What You Give

Tate Kraetzer

Picture this:

It’s any other Tuesday

And you’re dying in the street.

The song “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals is playing on the radio

Of the pretentious cafe porch you’ve gotten your blood on

While an older couple sips at their cappuccinos and watches you,

Talking about Courtney Love and Marylin Manson while you

Worry about your bank and whether or not your medical insurance

Covers death.

In this moment, you know you cannot afford to die.

That’s a hospital bill waiting to be signed in triplicate and you

Can’t pay a notary, especially because you’ll have to take off work for this bullshit

And you suspect that old dude is going to sue you

For getting blood on his shoe, nice brand,

All of this, of course, only if your boss, Janice, gives you the time off at all

For this nonsense because Sharon’s died four times already this year

And Pauline had died twice and still came into work — both times!

And you were taking Sophia’s shift already since she died last week —

Oh… Sophia.

You’d tell anyone not to call the ambulance that you can’t afford

If any of them seemed like they’d planned to call one in the first place —

They’re all perfectly content with you dying,

They don’t know you.

And it’s not the middle ages, but it might as well be because

You’re dying young in the middle of the street on a fucking Tuesday,

In pain, in need, but you still have your dignity —

And they’re going to catch that soon, if that ambulance comes,

A clerical error that’ll cost you,

Because here: You get to die in debt and in pain.

And that older couple is still looking at you,

Endlessly stirring wooden sticks in empty plastic cups,

Because they finished drinking a while ago

And this scene has been going on longer than you could ever know,

And they’re so hungry their eyes are eating you.

Elizabeth Pritchett

Biography: I’m a fourth year zoology student, and I blame Wild Kratts for that. Outside of school, I like to spend my time drawing and writing, mostly fiction of various genres, and mostly short stories (though I’m currently gnawing away at a few larger projects, one of which concerns the characters featured in my PRISM submission). I like to blend the things I learn from my classes with my art by sprinkling in speculative biology whenever I can.

Artist Statement: I was going to do something more metaphorical and introspective, but who has the energy. Within this piece two characters, Augustus and Dale, are privy to aspects of the other that no one else is. Though they try to ignore it, they can’t help but see these aspects (and the event that revealed them) whenever they meet — and thanks to their respective families, they can’t really avoid each other. My hope with this piece was primarily to do something I rarely do in my art, which is to tell a story in one image. My hope is that their past with each other, and the emotions they carry from it, can be discerned from the piece alone.

Tate Kraetzer

Biography: Tate Kraetzer is a second year studying Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences at OSU. Their primary passion is learning and exploring ways to combine their great loves of Latin, fish, and poetry. He has been published in The Classical Outlook and has contributed to PRISM behind the scenes. She’s known for yapping about anything and everything, but most especially eels.

Artist Statement: One of my favorite fun facts is that the New Radicals added references to other singers in the song “You Get What You Give” after their genuine critiques of systemic issues to see which part the media outlets would report on. When I wrote this poem, I drew heavily on the themes in the song and what I feel listening to it — on certain days it seems to me a bleak look forward at the path we’re going down, on others it reminds me that we have to recognize a system is broken before we can begin to change it.