My Generation

Dear parents, you cringe at my generation hovering loudly over our shoulders 

But don't you think I think it's sad too that nowadays and everyday

We drink the soup of our salty tears

And choke down anxiety pills like lumps in your throat you can't swallow

The words you only wish but never can spit out 

Naming every fear of ours a mental illness so we can get some sort of pill to fix us 

That never can really do more than etherize, anesticize us 

And we stifle the single human quality we have left: hunger

So that we can saw off, chip, and chisel away our bodies

Like that one art project in class you could never get right but the more you worked at it and repainted it the worse it looked

Because you were wrong practice doesn't always make perfect at least when it comes to purging 

Or we stifle it with the gluttony of eating ourselves alive 

Until we drown in the quicksand of our fat rolls 

Fingers curling over the mountains of our skin, and eyes peeking over 

Hoping no one is watching the act of hiding and harboring our souls away 

Because even the dark pit under all the fat is more comfortable than showing our real selves

Dear Michelle Obama it's not about how much exercise you get its about how much pressure you get 

Care more about the numbers of lives than the numbers in a GPA and then you won't have to make your commercials about change 

Because this pressure is the insomnia of inability, a paralysis 

It's what forces us teenagers into bed  saying we're tired when truly we aren't sleeping 

So then we are victims of parental tones trying to reprimand and fix our lying habits again

When we really aren't lying we are tired, tired of the pressure

The pressure so intense we cannot even lift a pencil to the paper let alone write an essay

So we are confined to our beds, because the fear of failure is like a strait jacket 

So we watch ours tv shows, view other characters' problems, watch others solve their issues

Because it's so much easier than facing our own

It's easier to watch others live life than do it yourself

And we drink and drink until we forget the color of the sky

And can't even feel the liquid gurgle over our lifeless tongues 

Because being numb is so much safer than feeling 

It's too unpredictable, feeling, 

So we say if you have to feel happiness and pain, then just screw them both 

So we party and jump off roofs and drive our cars way too fast

And you all scream at us that we aren't invincible 

But we are 

For how can you hurt an already wounded soul? 

And we sleep with the counterfeit people, give our bodies away 

Because being with the fakes keeps us away from the reals, the ones who will love you but will also make you feel

So dear parents, we know how you would want it,

The traditional way of people fearing death because that's how it's supposed to be, right?

And it scares you when my generation puts nooses around their throats instead of prom necklaces 

And guns to their heads just because they are afraid of a GPA or the pressure of a sports game

But don't you see it's all a game? 

And we are too frightened to play

I know back in your day people were scared to die

But mothers, fathers, it's not the same anymore

We have never been terrified  of nonexistence or death

We are terrified of living. 

-anna sluder