Youth

A recent conversation led me to write this poem. It is about what it means to be young and an individual in this generation. What does this distorted idea of youth means and how the youth today is demonized.

Walking under the concrete clouds,
with hearts of glass,
devoid of wholes,
picking up pieces as they go.
Finding salvation in their hair,
scratching gratification off their skins,
Looking for love at the base of,
The gateway to hell.
Cramming up spat words,
to make love to interesting men.
“Iʼve watched the greatest minds of my generation go insane.” Canʼt relate,
“Iʼve watched myself go crazy out of inferiority whilst watching the greatest minds of my generation”.

Disguised and standing naked,
under the temperate breeze,
chewing on their nails, starving,
to make their way,
amongst crevices,
of broken walls and empty lanes,
calling it their home.
Wandering the same old alleys,
looking for the stairway to hell to die for love,
at the base,
but stumbling and dying
where paradise met.

I’ve lived under the tombs of great individuals who have tried to kill the greatness within them

at some point, because the world doesn’t deal with mediocrity the same way

as they do, they slit wrists and sometimes cut off their ears just to deal with the insanity

that comes with the power, the power to create and to destroy

multiple times, the same things, to stab the face of God and paint the world from the same blood,

to recreate, they often try to contain the greatness just to stay sane

to be able to be in touch with the ground, but sanity comes with a price that they aren’t ready to pay

they’d rather die of passion than live with boredom, so often the great die by their own hands.

Here, the poem refers to this notion of the current generation diving into the so called existential-dread and how it is romanticised. It also showcases that in spite of the fact that the youth are continually patronised for being who they are, leading to them doubting themselves, they are still capable of doing great things.