Spoiler
Note: I would like to thank Kamas, who endured many versions and readings of this and was honest, patient, and helpful throughout; I'd probably never write slam without your enthusiasm and insight. I'd also like to thank Navita for her messages and comments, you lucked out and only saw two versions, but thank you nonetheless for helping with this on short notice. For the rest who saw this, thank you very much and this is the final product.
Generation Y
let's have a chat me and you generation let's be old friends telling the stories of a cherished youth; hold just one second though leave your parents at the door you're too old for them to be around anymore
generation it just dawned on me we’re not teenagers anymore
gotten old generation and remember like yesterday we were still playing with clay and mud as best buds for life
and I barely remember young JFK and princess Di all I know is people died and people cried just like when anyone else dies
but in my defense I still remember the first Facebook status I read “Hi guys today I ate bread”
god bless the fucking Internet it stays the same even when we change
and it tells us great trivia like the world was saved with the fall of the Berlin Wall
or so says Wikipedia because it’s always true and listen to what Wiki says of us
“Generation Y”
born 80' to 99' christened “children of the millennium” a new golden era a ticket back a rebirth of old culture's prime
the baby boomer’s echo splashed onto a page and served up for a digital age in our generation’s sweet tender age of 0 to 9
generation Y set in place for an Internet date after Y2K was nothing to fear but only for those with the money to connect
given 2000 as the ending line where prophesiers began writing our entire lives’ in a second of time in hopes of creating a best-selling fiction
and given a child’s favorite promise “you’re all special in your own way” fuck yeah we’re all going to be famous pop star heroes
best of all generation nicknamed the Peter Pans
but what do they know right the Internet is our birthright
an open worldwide communal high compromised of middle class and rich kid as diversity at its best sticking a giant finger digitally in the world’s face
our Internet a step somewhere into the future boldly going forward where our parents can’t imagine and now bickered and howled over to be bartered and censored and sold privately while the generation it claimed rides legally blind
generation I thought I’d be the man I wanted to be when this day came and here it damn well is and I’m nothing like it just addicted to a computer in a world I’m not satisfied with
still remembering the searing horror at the destruction of humanity witnessed with two decades a soul torn at Oklahoma to 9/11to Madrid to London to Bangladesh to Israel to Palestine to the Middle East and Al Qaida, seared frightened fucking blind an entire generation raised out of their minds
generation it’s long past time to wake the fuck up generation I have something to share and I don’t give a fuck what you post on the Internet it’s time to get real and think for yourself
generation why do we fund two wars to fight human emotion you'd think the whole human race needs a god damn Lifetime movie special intervention
generation why weren’t you there for the protests for money not spent on schools motions to raise the roof declarations to take to the streets and not watch them crumble at our feet oh that's right there were none
eleven years out now generation and I don’t see the fire to let voices shout and it’s makes me fucking scared to see
a generation at a perpetual loss for words that types in self sentenced isolation choosing not to speak
and I know it’s frustration and indignation at forefather’s that don’t listen mockingly turn the other cheek because
generation Y is tired of taking tests with preselected answers and earning degrees to fit forefathers dogma tired of trying with 1000% effort met with no success and just a pat on the chest while old men hand deals behind backs for the right connections tired of smoke and mirrors behind paper and push screen ballots when the popular vote is a nice graphic on the screen tired and restless with parents holding them back to their protective chests
and I’ve seen the anger and the feeling and it’s beyond our borders
and generation Y does not want to be lead or shown the way from Mississippi to New York from Alabama to France to South Carolina or Mexico and Uruguay from Georgia and Japan and China to Louisiana and god willing the most hypocritical right and left wing state ever so sincerely yours my home land Illinois
but generation Y a generation lost is already tossing the pieces of its mind away with dreams never tried addictions never beaten all in with a domestic yearn to get lost in the viral web that is the cocaine rock n' roll rap and story of a generation’s restless youth
and an age of restless revolutionary youth wasting away as a generation remains raised and dependent at being reared from cherry-wood oak and metal desktops of Apple IBM and Microsoft
lost surfing the net as children from 10 to 20 in an age of information said to free minds from old ways and old tastes and help get you a good education
but the cost of that education will send you a nice bill titled "Pay Back Before You're Dead preferably" and in tiny print photo shopped in at the end “if you can find a job” and
what is to find when you're dead before you can live old and poor before you travel and grow muted by a screen before you can talk and you’d rather avoid a single human face for a day or a year
and come clean for yourself generation to see we fucking love anonymity because it'll help us cope with all of the things we'll care about when we're 60 and
generation I don't see where the hell we are going I don’t see a desire to care I don’t see anything except text on screens and generation I’ve already said I’m scared why generation must I repeat myself
because you’ll think this to yourself
once we get a diploma and a twenty year debt or married by twenty and work the rest of our lives at 7-11 we’ll wonder why the best part of our day is making just enough for our next trip to get a hit
Generation Y
have I seen you willingly tear out your own eyes and hand them on a plate to a corporate state that is of the stockholders for the stockholders by the stockholders
Generation Y
do we send our eyes express to our next corporate address the born blind are insulted that we take our sight for granted
Generation Y
did it make mom and dad proud when you showed them your empty sockets clean and disinfected and you told them you did it all on your own
Generation Y
did it make you feel gleeful when you went behind their backs and broke all of the rules but by god don't you dare say anything personal on the Internet
Generation Y
can we hate and laugh at the Tea Party when they do what we've forgotten care and protest even if corporate interests line motto’s craft the slogans and present divas as leaders generation the Tea Party is stealing our birthright while we sit and pretend everything will be alright
Generation Y
tell me have you ever tried once to speak for yourself
Generation Y
do I now see you dutifully saluting your country's flag; well bless your heart aren't you a sweet patriot but there's more than a happy story of freedom behind hand picked history it's called you and I and the world as it sees us doesn't like us anymore
Generation Y
have we watched our forefathers foster the worst debt in history that's our legacy to inherit fucking fun to sort through that dirty laundry
Generation Y
are we waiting until they're out of sight out of mind ten feet down into the ground to take a stand of our own demands
Generation Y
really tell me will you ever defend yourself or do you really like the name Peter Pan’s
Generation Y
do we take being called “Peter Pans” when our forefathers walked us through the Chocolate Factory feeding us Willy Wonka modified chemically enhanced progressively scientifically changed chocolate liquor
Generation Y
are we so dumb, that's what the test scores say anyway
Generation Y
am I the only one standing here
Generation Y
don't we fucking care smugly unaware smugly anonymous smugly unemployed
Generation Y
are our only social-cultural creations goths and hipsters the Beats before us are ashamed
Generation Y
I don’t give a fuck about the Internet put some thought into how you’re going to pay the rent one day
Generation Y
have I seen our fate decided in the stock market just a rich corporate man's ponzi scheme
Generation Y
have I seen you alienated from parents in a Metamorphosis Kafka would ask Freud to dream penis envy and within the confines of a room 10 by 10 feet and no one would ever read a page because before we begin we are dead
Generation Y
have I seen you shipped abroad as an export of war asked to for honor asked to for safety while consumers consume and stick our heads in the sand while their sons and daughters bleed to death in sand and we shut our eyes to the news because America is the greatest fucking land
Generation Y
am I always talking to myself
written 4/05/11
reposted 4/16/11
