Your generation is defined by definitions.
'This generation', this new-fangled bunch of hooligans
Cut out and put in the oven,
Lives pre-formed, based on premonitions,
Put into the system and cranked out
Made up of numbers and tests that really define who you are.
'This generation' that you have given a set of rules
A set of molds to fit into
To pour their lives out and 'better the world'
Shaped with your all-knowing tools
Scissors that cut funding to the parts that maybe,
Perhaps, might make them an individual.
Because here, no, here we don't have room for individuality
But we sure have room for this assembly
Your freedom of religion, speech, and freedom to assemble
No room for that, for fear of immorality
We don't have time for originals, we don't have time for strays
I'm sorry that you've got ideas, Generation Y
But this is the generation of time constraints.
We've got technology to innovate, an ozone to fit
Communities to build and lives put at risk
But that's not as important as what's in the now
No, not as important as these tucks and nips
We've got to put you under the needle
Even after we swore, 'first do no harm',
But this isn't going to hurt, I swear
Well, maybe not on the outside.
Look here, Y, you'd be better off compliant
To fix our computers and drive our trucks
To turn off your TVs and just trust us
To read the chapter and finish the assignment
Because to us, you all learn the same,
To us you are still just a number
Even if you think you're out when you graduate.
So what, you graduated the system,
And it's done it's work on you
Have your daddy pick the college and your mama pick the sheets
Pack your bags, you're ready for the big world
And that's exactly what we made you think.
Generation Y, you are fitting into the molds we gave you
We tried to crank you out in groups of 300
And we did
You were never allowed to be original
And you weren't.
Generation Y, this cookie-cutter, uniform
'Glued to technology', uninterested
Group of 'stupid' teenagers
You were forced to unify
And forced into corrals, thereby,
Forced into lives we've blessed you with.
I swear, by my very intelligence
That we're good by you, good by the world
In evaluating what we need
Where we need people
Hopefully creating a society less-gnarled
Generation Y, you may hate the population
But you are the population
And you are what we told you to be.
Your lives were pre-formed from day one,
So, please,
Sit down, shut up, finish your definitions,
And stop asking why.

You are not condemned
To the confines of life
Nor the sounds of being locked in
And hit by dirt
You do not belong
To the flowers they send
The wishes they write
Or the tree they plant in your name
You are not prisoner
To a shallow grave
And a shallower gravestone
Not even to the duties you left behind
You have not been claimed
By the years you will not see
The tears you cannot dry
Or the hugs you cannot return
You are not captive
To the sounds and words
That defined you
Or the way people shaped you
Because you are free from condemnation
From the clutch of sickness
Free to leave and wipe the tears
And hug the ones that hesitate
To throw the dirt over the years
You are free from prison,
From proclamation,
From captivity and condemnation
To help and to inspire
And to free others from a prison
Of grief.