Frozen in place I stood,
A deer caught in a hunter’s crosshair.
I never thought you would,
But you did; you killed me, right there.
I am angry at myself, most of all;
For staying when I should have left,
For not dodging the bullet and taking the fall.
Twice now, I found myself broken;
Carelessly adrift in life,
Like a raft on the ocean.
Too much pain this chest,
These monsters in my head
Feel like an obstacle I cannot best.
I don’t just want to be loved;
I want us all to love and understand one another.
‘It’s not possible, we’re too different,’
Those who wish to rebuttal will answer.
No, that is the distant path you chose,
I choose to keep my humanity close.
And yet, I cannot stop the terrifying flashbacks.
You made me feel like a train veering off its tracks.
Like a bridge that leads to a precipice,
Nothing but a cold, dark abyss.
Meet the millennials -
The most criticised generation,
Suffering from emotional stagnation,
Raised on a steady diet of instant gratification.
‘What do you want, then?’
I want us to feel the soil with our bare feet.
To associate freely with others we meet,
Not bow down to the pretension of the elite.
To embrace our soul,
Not shun it and drive it into a locked room;
To retrace our role,
Not simply run our life’s course to its doom.
We are being led astray,
Our hopes and dreams hidden away.
We have no room for thought, little to say,
For few want to go out of their way.
No criticism, no originality -
No witticism, no vitality.
We are criticised for criticising,
And we are ostracised when we act defying.
We are the paralysed;
Our fears leave us immobilised,
Anxiety and depression,
Killing variety of expression.
We languish in prisons
That we build for ourselves in our own head;
We have nightmarish visions,
Like a guild of the living dead.
A re-write of another failed poetryfoundation submission, because **** those guys.
