Is This All We Are?

I feel the familiar pressure move in,
An unwanted embrace of awkwardness that lingers;
Their heated, rancid breath strokes my face;
It reeks of standardized rebellion and petty lies.
The light is dim and faded; they’ll hide here for as long as it takes.
They’ll sit in their holes while the world’s fire rages.
Their empty laughs echo across the sky,
A blissful symphony of unanswered attention.
This is us and we have been spoiled.

We want what we want, and we want it now.
All the pain we face can be blamed on an object.
Technology, religion, free opinion–pick your scapegoat.
Ignore the person behind the black ski-mask;
Secret identities are supposed to remain hidden.
We’re our own superheroes.
Even though we tell ourselves we’re strong,
All there’s left is clothes, hay, and a stick to steady ourselves on
Left to be tossed and thrown by the wind of circumstance.
Life isn’t good when everyone hates us.
Let them oodle and gawk while we giggle and screech;
We don’t see where we’re going but we don’t care.

We like what we like, and we like it now.
Our backs are broken and shattered continually from the weight;
We must be strong for those who are spectating.
Our elders look at us in grief and agony;
They regret how they raised us.
If they could take back those angry, spur of the moment screams,
If they could have listened to us and nurtured our dreams…
They might have, maybe. . .
We blame our ceaseless anger on them.

We hate what we hate, and we hate it now.
It’s their fault that everyone hates us.
Parents, grandparents, teachers, bosses, neighbors, politicians,
Those who have abandoned or fled us.
Did they think they were not good enough for us?
Were they scared of that tiny, dirty baby?
Some of them were deceived and lied to,
Told that there was no life in their wombs.
They didn’t know what to think, and were convinced to cheat.
These are just blobs of cells, not their child they will never meet;
We continue this twisted tradition, live for love and kill the product.

Is everyone just here to watch you fail?
Check your phone again; you’ve got mail!
A message you get every single day–
It haunts your sleep and scares away the sheep.
It reads, “You are the generation of devastation.”
“The world is falling apart and you sit alone;”
“All you care about is opinions and sticks and stones;”
We listen for a second before putting our music back in.
The world tells me to be myself and nothing else.
What if I hate myself and want to change?

I hear You whisper:
“I AM who I AM, and I AM now.”
In the schools and colleges full of desperate youth,
They are taught to deny that I AM is.
We are sculpted to have inquisitive minds and free hearts,
Taught that it is impossible that I AM exists.
An omnipresent being who really loves His creation?
Crazy. Bizzare. Ignorant. Bliss.
We might be Israel in the desert, America in the year of the millenials
But He always was who He always is.

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”–1 Peter 2:9