The teacher told us
Read the book and do a project
Show me what you've learned.
I've done this one before,
I know the story.
A story of a girl and a boy,
A mystery and a trial.
I already read the book.
Analyzed the characters.
Searched for symbolism.
That's not what I learned.
Not this time.
The teacher told us
Say smart things
And the ideas will flow.
Once someone told me
People must hear smart things,
Before they can ever say them.
So I listened.
And that is when I truly learned.
I heard a girl say
But what if I'm not smart
And I heard that she wasn't the only one.
I heard the laughter,
Quiet and awkward
Covering up real insecurities
As they play it off as a joke.
I listened.
I heard about the book being banned.
I heard my classmates
Cry out in fury.
Furious
That after all they've seen
After all they've heard
They were still expected to be ignorant.
I listened.
I heard the letters.
I heard the speeches.
I heard the voices rising as one.
I heard smart things
From my generation.
This is what I learned.
YOU ARE READING
My Generation
PoetryTHIS is my generation. It is also a project that I am doing for my English class. It is a series of poems about , you guessed it, my generation. Enjoy!
