These Kids Today.

These kids today,
with their raised fists, screaming to the idols of the stage that they will change the world -
change the world with the cars their parents bought them,
racing from this event to that event, calling to SAVE THE PLANET
before driving one hundred and twelve miles in a box on wheels
whose gas mileage is less than most of their ACT scores.
The ACT never asked them how to think,
never demanded that its takers comprehend the way life truly works.
But nevertheless, in number-induced elation, they could wave the papers that ensured their entrance to this program or that school in their friends’ faces.
Change the world indeed.

These kids today,
whose dreams are so lofty,
soaring beyond the opportunities their parents had.
So privileged they are –
to be able to jet around the earth on this humanitarian mission or that peace project.
“This’ll look great on our resumes,”
they say to each other,
eying out the competition to their prestigious placement in elitist communities;
or perhaps, scoping out the most favorable distraction to the horror they were sent over to help.
No one expects the good kids
to fight bitterly,
to lust passionately,
to trip heavily on the stuff they bargained from the dirty boy down the street,
to find Lucy in the sky in the dorm rooms on which their parents spent thousands a year to provide.

These kids today,
infected with hatred –
for their parents,
for the government,
for the kids who sits all alone at lunch time, only to consider suicide at the age of sixteen, because he can taste the hatred of his peers in the turkey and swiss on rye his mother packed him.
They pissed in his pudding yet again.
And simultaneously they’ll smile, they’ll wave,
they’ll accept that award with a grin on their face,
hiding the fact that the essay they wrote about their alcoholic uncle
was a complete and utter lie.
Uncle Brian lives in Savannah, Georgia and owns a health food store.
Uncle Brian pays for their education.
Uncle Brian doesn’t know that the lonely boy who sits alone at lunch
never came back to school.
No one knew his name.

These kids today,
with their wild hair and black clothes,
dreaming of becoming the rebel that everyone secretly loves,
dreaming of being different for once.
They’ll huddle together in their groups and dream together,
never realizing that in their rebellion they’ve become yet another number,
another statistic to be presented to their younger sister, younger brothers.
The dead and shriveled, tar filled lungs they all once shuddered at the sight of
have begun to grow in their own chests.
Suddenly they’re yet another nameless face in yet another trend –
and tragically, they don’t even realize it.

These kids today
swear to dethrone the president,
to stand up to social injustice,
to boycott the corrupt industries,
to start a revolution with their
voices,
words,
petitions,
marches.
But suddenly they’re distracted from their noble causes by the unmistakable scent
of the perfume of the girl who lives three doors down,
and the feel of her lips when they brush against the tender skin of the neck.
And the dying masses,
the screaming victims of genocide,
the weeping, abused women,
the hunger stricken countries,
the unjust war,
and the climate catastrophe –
all are millions of miles away from their suburban slice of heaven.

And the funny thing is –
or tragic, rather –
is that one day they won’t be kids anymore.
They’ll be sporting their shiny shoes on the gum stained sidewalks of Manhattan,
they’ll be talking on cell phones attached to their ears as they create a bit more wind
in the already breezy Chicago,
they’ll be holding umbrellas in Seattle to the rain whose acidity was the result
of the SUVs they drove to SAVE THE PLANET rallies.
And when they stand together to rock the vote,
as they always swore they would back in the day when they could
hide from social injustice under their parents’ roofs,
it will be these kids today
who will rule the world.