Every generation
has the leaders and the followers.
The popular kids and the geeks,
the kids who get high on the streets
and the kids who get high on cloud nine.
The artists and the poets,
the skaters, the stoners,
the musicians and the actors,
and we all have the kids
who are all of the above.
We all have the kids
who are none of the above.
Times change, yes
and trends come and go
but don’t tell me that I’m exceptional
not because of what I know
but because of the children
that surround me.
Don’t tell me to speak my dreams
and release my strife in the form of rhyme
because “few others you know do it”.
Passion is limitless,
passion is ageless
and while I’m being raised
in a generation of technology
and dramatic social media,
yolo and swag, pregnant teens
and 55-hour marriages-
I’m growing up
in a generation of artists,
a generation of dreamers,
a generation of doers,
and a generation
of freethinkers.
Freethinkers whose words
drip from their tongues like honey
and stain their pages in the world
like wine.
Students who get bored
with teachers wanting them to think
in 1’s and 0’s,
fit into standards,
speak in slanders
and begin to hyperventilate
because they can’t translate
what they think.
Kids who haven’t forgotten
that breathing in binary isn’t healthy.
Apparently, those that find
enough creative destruction in life to cheat the system
are going against the greater public’s
better judgement,
feeling free to sit and glare
at those who swear that they’re normal,
but I’m not growing up with those kids.
People who sit back and cry crocodile tears
for those who don’t know
what to think of themselves,
sitting back and laughing
at those who shudder and shake
at the thought of being caught in between
different sides of their minds
that they don’t know it’s okay to have…
but I’m not growing up with those people.
I’m growing up in a
group of rebels,
a group that will one day
run the nation-
a nation of tenacious activists,
wearing their minds
more professionally than
politicians wear their suits-
and with better ideas.
Because we have voices,
we have pens,
but most important
we have ideas,
ideas that can change the world,
change the world more
than poker-faced suits
and hate commercials
and picket signs
ever could.