Now I lay me down to sleep
ready for my soul to dream,
but it's hard to rest when I hear
everyone singing the Tomorrow Blues Lullaby.
My parents sing "We're just waiting for retirement,"
My 9 to 5 friends sing "I'm living for the weekend"
a few of them sing "I'm looking forward to football"
my brother sings "I'm looking forward to Breaking Bad"
and the banks sing "Save for today so you can live for tomorrow."

I'm not too fond of this song,
it makes my heart race, my face twitch and my breath shallow cold.
I can't fathom living to be old with mountains of folded quid and clothes
dinning on modified tomato corn sandwiches inhaling CO2
and watching housewives on the tube.

I dream of living near a babbling stream in the woods, or atop a quiet mountain,
something peaceful and away from it all.
But the elder Generation X and baby boomers
like my parents tell me I've got to pay my dues,
they tell my Generation Y peers and I are spoiled and entitled
with more gadgets and toys disturbing the system
cause we all think we deserve the world cause we've been taught "you're all special."

These bitter, harsh notes in the lullaby
keep me awake; like a chord-clashing siren song
causing heartache and migraines.
I prefer passive words but this burning breath
ruptures my throat and scalds my veins
smoke rising and flames dance along my tongue
as these choking words burst forth;

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry we're not blindly walking down the same roads
like the days of old sending loved ones overseas as soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq
killing each other instead of building our own path.
I'm sorry we're staying awake instead of "living the dream"
in a conveyor belt system of school-job-live-die that you built for us.  
I'm sorry we're leery of trusting banks and the invisible electric money
you helped "print."

But most importantly, I'm sorry
you're upset. You have every right to be.
You're starting to see what you build holds no interest for them or me.
We're building another ride, one where we can be free and one with everything.
So go on, call us names,
tell us we're not special despite teaching us we are.
While you're trying to push forward in housing, pharmaceuticals and gas
we're starting to wake up  from this dream to see
starving children and diseases yet to be cured
all the while seeing what we've learned from you
is just absurd and untrue.
THIS HURTS US TOO.
We know so much sweaty, sleepless and stressful hours
were put into this path, but at some point
will you realize it's going in the wrong direction?

I want to put my head on your shoulder and
melt into your pores; we can be
yin and yang as we swirl and intertwine
in the most beautifully tragic way,
like water and oil in a clear ceramic bowl

the edges of his cupid’s bow lips quirked
up with the rising sun and I thought that perhaps
I had been shot by one of his arrows—
young love, young cherub,
how reckless we are.

The inadequate bookshelf that sat near the door
that my sister used to call her own was
mostly made up of adolescent reads,
books better suited for preteen girls rather than
intellectually budding young ladies—
juvenile vocabularies and simple, non-complex
plot lines do little to craft and create
worldly, knowledgeable women.

I thought I must spring clean the
naiveté away and replace it with
the works of great authors like
Sylvia Plath
                        Simone de Beauvoir
                                                              Virginia Woolf
                        Margaret Atwood
Betty Friedan;
ingenious femme fatales that cut down
to the brittled bones of the misogynists
and burned their marrow along with the
ashes of bras and aprons and 350 degree oven heat.  

Growing up, to me, seemed like a wonderful epiphany
chock-full of ideas and opinions and
clever, ironic remarks that chased satirical witticisms
like felines to rodents and wolves to deer—
being an adult would guarantee me a say,
a vote
           prior 1920’s America
                                                  play dress up as a suffragette
           women’s rights
femininity personified by dolls in plastic houses.

To be eighteen-years-old,
the goal, the legality, the bright light at the end of the tunnel;
the official womanhood it would bestow upon me
seemed like something almost tangible
with the way that it loomed over my head.

Get good marks
graduate high school
travel back in time sixty years
meet a nice boy
become a “good wife”
have dinner ready by five
bear two beautiful heirs
clean up the messes left in the kitchen
fast-forward to the twenty-first century
go to a good college
find a stable career
settle down if the fancy strikes you
live non-docile and full of passion—
the parallelism of times are severely
di
    lap
          i
            dat
                 ­ ed.

1950’s America would never be a home for me
because I am much too wild to be contained.

Scattered are my thoughts
desperately searching for a hold
in this breaking reality
of life so cold

I am me and I will be
so why question things i cannot see?
Anger and pain are all I feel,
yet my face does not show it...
is this even real?

Even from myself I hide,
never shall I confide.

Forever in my heart these dry tears will linger,
for I am simply,
a hopeless thinker.

to who you truly are.