Inheritance of Nothing

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

She moves through hallways
as if power belongs to her,
as if the weight of the university
rests on her name alone,
as if her presence alone
were enough to hold its walls in place.

Her hands have never built,
never labored over thought or work,
never drawn plans in the hush of study,
yet she carries herself as if
this place is stitched from her breath,
as if she alone has shaped its name.

She was not chosen for skill,
nor for talent, but for loyalty—
the kind that stirs conflict,
the kind that bends when power bends,
the kind that wages wars
that are not hers to win,
as if victory alone is what matters.

The ones in power know her name,
not for what she has done,
not for what she has given,
but for how well she follows,
how quickly she takes up their fights,
how easily she makes enemies
of people who have never wronged her.

Her husband bends where he must,
a man of easy laughter,
of pleasantries smoothed over
like stones beneath a river,
principles folding neatly
into the hands that feed him,
into the voices that call his name.

And so, she rises,
not by effort, not by work,
but by standing in the right rooms,
by whispering the right names,
by making herself necessary
to the wars that are not hers
but for which she fights all the same.

She does not greet people,
she measures them,
weighs their worth in glances,
decides in an instant
who is beneath her,
who does not deserve
to walk the same halls.

She looks at scholars
as if they are small,
at leaders as if she were their equal,
at those who have built
this place with time and labor
as if they should bow to her name.

She walks like the dean,
like the vice president,
like the board of regents—
though none of them
carry themselves as she does,
though none of them
have ever needed to be seen
as badly as she does.

She believes the university is hers,
that its success lives beneath her feet,
that without her,
the walls would fall to ruin,
that without her voice,
this place would not speak.

She does not know
that the ones who built this place
do not move like she does.
They do not collect nods,
do not gather titles in their mouths
like offerings to the wind.
They work. They build.
They do not ask to be seen,
do not ask to be named,
do not ask for a place
that is not theirs to claim.

But she—
she loves the fight,
wears grievance like gold,
holds her anger as if it were a gift,
as if it were a weapon,
as if it were all she had.

She does not fight for justice.
She fights to be known.
She fights to be seen.
She fights to make herself
as large as the walls
she did not build.

And yet, when the halls empty,
when the voices lower,
when the power she borrowed
turns from her name—

she will be what she was before:
without title, without legacy,
without anything
that time will keep.