The adults are talking
But what do they know?
Their child is suffering while they peacefully sleep in a boring room the floor below
The street lights you used to follow home are broken
And now we stumble through the darkness
They're broken because you broke them
Not by fault
You were unknowing
But now we're dancing on the narrow path of what's acceptable
The music only gets faster and faster
Don't let it catch you
Decide what you want for your life and follow through
Never stop to think.
Get up and brush it off
Continue walking even if your foot has been cut off
They might even take your leg or your arm
Don't even flinch
They might take the other one too
We know you want to understand
But you will fail
Forever
Cause you were never a child in the 21st century
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Oha at first I thought the street lights that are broken now could have been a hint that the decay of the city/social fabric. But then you hit me with the "you broke them" so now I am intrigued and confused!
I wonder if it was deliberate or still a metaphor... for how the next generation is inheriting a situation that is basically unfixable? @.@
Also this sentence really stuck out to me: "Continue walking even if your foot has been cut off"
Very cool imagery!
tyyyy!!!
Hai :3
Oh wow, this is so sharp and despairing!! There’s this frantic, accusatory rhythm running through the whole thing, like the speaker is trying to explain something impossible while also already knowing they won’t be understood. I love how this poem frames generational disconnect not as a simple “adults don’t get it” complaint, but as something much darker: adults are physically nearby, even sleeping beneath the suffering child, and still completely unreachable. That’s such a haunting image!!
This opening is so direct, and I think that really works!! It has this almost childlike bluntness, but the rest of the poem complicates it immediately. “The adults are talking” feels like background noise, like authority happening somewhere else, but not actually helping. Then “But what do they know?” undercuts that authority so cleanly. It’s simple, but it carries so much bitterness. The idea that the child is suffering above them while they sleep peacefully below creates such a painful physical separation, too. They’re close enough that they should know, but they don’t. Or maybe they do, and they still sleep. That ambiguity hurts!!
I also really like “boring room” here. It feels intentionally plain, almost resentful. Like the adult world is dull and safe and ordinary, while the child’s world is collapsing upstairs.
!!!! I LOVE this section!!
The streetlights are such a good metaphor for guidance, safety, childhood routes, all of that. The fact that they’re broken makes the world feel hostile, but then the twist that you broke them is so interesting ~~ It avoids making the child purely innocent in a simple way. Instead, it feels like the child has inherited or participated in their own loss without understanding what was happening. That is so painfully 21st-century to me: being blamed for damage you were too young or too overwhelmed to recognize.
“Not by fault / You were unknowing” is really tender in the middle of all this harshness. It gives the speaker a moment of mercy, which makes the rest of the poem feel even more brutal.
This is SUCH a good metaphor!! “Dancing” makes me think of performance, of social rules, of trying to keep up with expectations while pretending it’s graceful. But the “narrow path” makes it dangerous, like one wrong move means falling off completely. The music getting faster and faster is perfect because it captures that panicked acceleration of growing up online/under pressure/under constant judgment. There’s no pause.
^^^ I do wonder if you could expand this image even more, because it’s one of the poem’s richest moments!! What kind of music is it? Who started it? Is it coming from the adults, from the phone, from the self? The metaphor is already strong, and I’d love to see it become even more specific and suffocating.
This part is so vicious in a great way!! It captures that awful productivity-survival mindset where pain is acknowledged only as an inconvenience. “Never stop to think” is especially chilling because thinking is exactly what a suffering child needs time for, but the world doesn’t allow that. It demands motion. Decide. Continue. Perform. Recover instantly. The cut-off foot image is grotesque and almost absurd, but that’s why it works!! It shows how ridiculous these expectations are. Like, the world will ask for resilience even after it has made resilience impossible.
UGH. This is so final. “We know you want to understand” almost sounds compassionate at first, but then the poem denies that possibility completely. The “Forever” being isolated gives it this awful weight. It’s not just that adults misunderstand now; it’s that the gap is permanent. That’s devastating!! The ending reframes everything before it, too, and I love that. It isn’t just about one child suffering in one house ~ There's a generation whose childhood is shaped by speed, surveillance, pressure, instability, and expectations that older generations may sympathize with but cannot truly know from the inside.
^^^ My main note is that the poem’s directness is part of its power, but a few moments could hit even harder if they leaned more into the specific images you already created. The streetlights and the dancing/music metaphor are SO strong, and I think they could carry some of the more abstract lines. For example, instead of only telling us “what’s acceptable,” maybe show the path narrowing, the shoes slipping, the music coming from somewhere ugly. You have this great surreal nightmare logic already, and I’d love to see it pushed further!!
This is such a raw, angry, and emotionally clear poem. The best part is that it doesn’t beg for sympathy; instead, it accuses a whole generation of wrongdoing. That’s powerful and necessary in art!! ^_^
- Payton
Now this isn't a review but rather my opinion as a child living in the 21th century... YES IT'S ALL THE ALL BIG CORPORATIONS AND GOVERMENTS FAULT!!!
Thank you.
Why not the parent's fault? Well, some parents are at fault but most are just trying to make money and sustain themself and their children. People are exhausted it's not only us younger generations, everyone is getting burnout (except the rich out of touch folks...)
The difference is the older generations are used to it, their cynical and lived through it however the young are the ones who change the tide of history. I feel this poem it is kind... it feels rather hopeless when it's not all doom and gloom this change if we DO something about it. How you ask? Being kind and respectful to eachother, not getting caught up in shallow things that they try to distract us with. But now I'm sounding too positive... but there must be hope in some way. I guess the only thing we can do in the moment is make small impacts and choose our own lives and maybe if enough people do that... we'll see.
I'm critiquing this poem for seeming insensitive to older generations? No idea. But I just want everyone to have a reminder not to get stuck in doom and gloom and that we're all in the same boat.
(Notes: This generational divide is also a way the rich make us stop focusing on them and instead focus on others in the same boat and think their the enemy effectively making us kill eachother :3)
(Another note: I'm actually not burnt out I'm the opposite! I feel... THERE'S NOTHING TO DO!! I wanna go outside being on the computer is DRAINING!)
I agree with you on this. BE MORE KIND FOLKS!!!
thanks for the comment <333
Best parts:
"The street lights you used to follow home are broken / And now we stumble through the darkness" - This is beautifully concrete imagery that carries the weight of lost guidance and safety
The escalating body horror metaphor (foot → leg → arm → the other one) - It's unsettling and effectively brings across the relentless demands placed on young people. The "Don't even flinch" is chilling...
The final gut-punch: "Cause you were never a child in the 21st century" - This lands hard as an indictment and explanation all at once
Weakest parts:
"The music only gets faster and faster / Don't let it catch you" - This feels slightly muddled. Music doesn't typically "catch" you, and the metaphor doesn't quite cohere with the dancing image.
I think the buildup, the way it brutally goes from metaphor to metaphor, is especially fabulous.
tyyyyy!! thanks for reviewing!!
it was deliberate. a deliberate unwinding of childhood and childhood innocence. to undo and fill their own wallets.
the generations before sold all of their futures in blood money. we didn't invest in climate or education but instead rejected it for mass media, conspiracy, wars and propaganda.
- vic
The Architecture of Isolation
The poem opens with a brutal contrast between the "boring room" of the parents and the "suffering" of the child. The use of "peacefully sleep" creates a sense of negligence that isn't necessarily malicious, but rather anatomical. The floor separating them isn’t just wood and joists; it’s a chronological barrier.
The imagery of the broken street lights serves as a powerful metaphor for the loss of traditional guidance. Usually, street lights represent the path home—the safety of "the way things have always been done." By stating, "They’re broken because you broke them / Not by fault / You were unknowing," the author avoids a simple blame game. It suggests a systemic collapse: the previous generation’s pursuit of progress or "normalcy" inadvertently destroyed the visibility for those coming next.
The Kinetic Nightmare: "The Music Gets Faster"
One of the most compelling segments of the piece is the shift from stagnant darkness to frantic movement. The "narrow path of what's acceptable" highlights the modern phenomenon of hyper-surveillance and cancel culture. In the 21st century, the margin for error is razor-thin, and as the poem notes, the "music only gets faster."
This section captures the burnout of a digital era where:
Decisions must be instant: "Never stop to think."
Vulnerability is a liability: "Don't even flinch."
The cost of participation is high: The imagery of losing limbs (arms, legs, feet) suggests a soul-crushing "grind culture" where young people are expected to sacrifice their physical and mental well-being just to keep moving.
The Stoic Absurdist Command
The middle of the poem takes on a tone of militant stoicism. The commands to "get up and brush it off" even after losing a limb reflect the toxic positivity often forced upon a generation struggling with unprecedented rates of anxiety. It portrays a world that demands high performance while offering zero empathy. The repetition of "They might take..." creates an atmosphere of predatory expectation—the "They" remains nameless, representing the vague, hungry pressures of modern society, economy, and social media.
The Finality of the Void
The closing lines are where the poem truly finds its teeth.
"We know you want to understand / But you will fail / Forever / Cause you were never a child in the 21st century"
This is a profound statement on experiential isolation. It posits that the 21st-century childhood is a distinct psychological mutation. To grow up with a world of information (and judgment) in your pocket is an experience that cannot be retroactively understood by those who grew up "analog." The word "Forever" adds a layer of tragic permanence. It isn't a bridge that can be built; it’s a canyon that has already formed.
thanks for your review! You broke it down in a way I could've never done in my own words ^w^
anytime
That's why I don't have social media... only YWS and pixilart. But I feel this is a little... it makes it seem as if older generations don't understand (LayLay's review)? They do, their also feeling it as I said before.
It's not just us feeling burnt out and tired and misunderstood, everyone is and really? A canyon? Well, I don't agree with that. It's just that we're still on our phones, WE'RE NOT TALKING TO EACHOTHER!! Communication is the key to success, yet we're not communicating! Why? Phones, internet we're trapping ourselves in this digital void because they've made it so addicting ON PRUPOSE!! (By they I mean the rich crazy psychopaths) So what to do we do? We can only effect and control what we do so it's your choice, you choose.
Awesome poetry !!