Sometimes I think back to the time we spent at school.

Hard plastic chairs, short desks and shorter attention spans.

We were children:

Indoctrinated with dreams of quiet homes and large offices. Of fieldwork, pride and gold-gilt fame.

We said that we would be doctors, lawyers, scientists, astronauts.

Never-mind the adult's delighted laughs! We reveled in mirth and wonder.

Now we say that we would be seeing doctors.
Needing lawyers.
Blood-shot eyes scanning tabloids that preached SCIENCE as if it were medieval magic. No, brother, correlation ain't causation.

How wonderful would it be to someday see humanity dance among the cosmos? Weaving between invisible holes cut into the pitch vastness of space.

Now we accept our jobs with a grimace and a sigh.
Uncomfortable as they may be, we've got bills to pay and loans to ignore.

We're all waiting for something to come after.

After puberty. After degrees of debt. After—

After we aged. Fragile from years of effort.
Snapping our backs to the rhythm of our daily commute.

I don't know what comes after, brother.

But I sure as hell didn't sign up for this.

If time stood still for a month
I'd question the minutes I misused
If given a week, where I didn't have to think
I might find a second to relax
This American dream I'm suppose to be chasing,
Just feels like I'm racing between work and my bed
Building  a mountain of stress and a mountain of debt
And then I come home, underpaid, overworked
It's hard to not let a job, define my worth.

They build us up for years, kid, follow your dreams
Then tossed to curb, kid, your worthless, it seems
They don't understand, the price to move up these days
A 50 thousand dollar loan to get a degree
In a job that still doesn't pay.
Call me unmotivated, I'll ask for an offer worth my time
Where the pay is substantial and insurance isn't robbing me blind
"Go be a doctor, a lawyer, a suit"
And spend the next 8 years eating only Ramen noodle soup?

You don't get it, I get it. "My generation wants it all for free"
Then how come I feel like I have so many chains around me?
They combat us with fear, attack our esteem and integrity
Until you're weak and question your own abilities.
These kids pop pills because their stressed out from life
Have you seen the pressures thrown at them every night?
I'm not saying we're victims, I'm saying we just need help
We're a lost generation as past ones only fend for themselves

I:

In which
I

amid the
whirring lights

and emerald
felt

drift
through a

raucous
flashing casino

searching

for a
table

with an open
chair

so I can
finally start

to play
the game


II:

In which all of us
are together again at last

for a family gathering—
Thanksgiving supper, perhaps—

and, as we greet each other,
I happen to glance skyward,

unthinking,
and notice that clouds

of a turbid
cumulonimbus gray

are beginning to coalesce overhead.

I look up again and notice
that they have spun

into dozens of funnel shapes,
each of them

starting to reach down for us
like the ashen fingers of Death.

We huddle down in the cellar,
praying the storm will pass.

There once was a posh boy all alone in town,
He saw the sign for a good night going down,
The sign was neon and bright,
and all it said was,
SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS,
So down he went and started his decline,
Shouting SHORT'S, SHORT'S, SHORT'S.