[p o e t r y]

My Generation

Modern articles seem to
Constantly broadcast
That my generation is impatient
That we are in a hurry to grow up
To become adults

The problem is
I'm not sure those articles
Are entirely correct
I mean, have you seen
My generation lately?
Have the authors of those articles
Really studied us?
Have they checked our blogs?
Seen our lives?
Noticed our nonchalant humor?
I don't think they have.

You see,
My generation
We're all about
hurt, humor, and healing
Some of us merely hurt
Look at how we write
Take a moment to
Really gaze into our eyes

We are so hurt
We are fascinated by pain
We study history
Riddled with heartbreak and tragedy:
The holocaust
"War is Hell" hand-painted on a young soldier's helmet
The titanic's frightful submerge
The bang that ended Lincoln's Legacy
These are all events that fascinate
My generation
We wallow in tragic history
Because we just want to know
That we are not the first generation That hurt like this
Afterall, we are a generation of hurt

We also are a generation of humor
Memes
Vines
Dark and depressing humor
These concepts make up
My generation's vocabulary
"I have crippling depression"
That is a joke
That is a vine
That has become a meme
Our humor is so tainted
Because we are so hurt
And yet my generation?
We laugh
We laugh because we don't know
What else to do
Because we hope that we will
Be able to create
happiness from laughter
And we are using
The hurt we have, our main resource,
To create an oddly shaped happiness
Afterall, my generation
Is a generation of humor

Lastly, my generation
Is a generation of healing
And that, I believe,
Is where the articles
Misinterpret my generation
You see, we long for healing
We are a generation of hurt and humor
And yet, despite the hurt, the "humor"
We are determined to make it
We desire to heal
My generation is encouraging
"You're gonna make it, hun."
We say to strangers online
"Drink some water, wash your face."
We sleepily text to our friends'
When our phones ding
At 3am because our friends'
lost sight of the light for a second,
"I'm going to travel when I'm older,
I hope to be a mother one day,
I can't wait to finally see
My hard work pay off"
We say
We say these things,
Not because we are in a hurry
To grow up, to be adults
I don't think any of us want
To be adults really
Being an adult is scary
No, we say these things
Because my generation longs
To be healed
And we know that if we can just
Hang on to hope for long enough
That we will make it
We will heal
And that is what our healing
Will look like.

Afterall, my generation
Is a generation of
Endless hurt
Depressing humor
But most of all
We are a generation
Of healing hope,
And we are going to make it.

(The end)