GROWING UP

I remember when hands were for comforting

Before they started going up skirts

I remember when lips were for compliments

Before we kissed until being alone didn’t hurt.

Hugs turned to sex

Smiles turned to texts

Candy to cigarettes

Schoolyard races to lottery bets

Mountain Dew to mary jane

Hyper kids pronounced insane

‘Cool kids’ to twitter fame

Asphalt scrapes to mental pain

Snow angels to angel dust

Show and tell to nudes and lust

Growing up is being so rushed

Hopes and dreams quickly crushed.

Oh, but that’s the way it goes

Growing up means growing old

We change, seasons change,

Leaves turn to gold.

Call it nostalgia, call it something else

I just wish for a time less . . . complicated

Call it depression, call it needing help

Life’s a game and I’m . . .

Life got hard 

Shackled to a plastic card

Always on your guard

Self-worth on report cards

We’re psychologically scarred

Disgusted with who we are.

Growing up means living less

Screwing over means success

Crumbling under all the stress;

Expensive outfits just to impress

Another lost soul in a dress.

Let’s get real, let me confess

I’d rather die than live with regret.

This is what they call growing up in our generation

You can probably understand my trepidation

Of age and its relentless acceleration 

It’s a prison with no hope for liberation.

We can’t spend life chasing new sensations

Or working behind a desk for some corporation

We have to work for happiness and toleration

Because fixing society is our obligation.

Growing up in a world we didn’t ask for

Growing up with a low ceiling and no floor

Growing up when dreaming means declaring war

Maybe if we don’t grow up we can learn to live more.

THE COSMIC SOUL

People are often uncomfortable

Seeing the flaws in others;

Once we fixate on one piece

Of who another person is

We want to keep them

Inside that little box

On that imaginary pedestal

Confined to that spotlight.

Oh, she has a beautiful smile

And so she is only seen

As a two-dimensional image

Like a tabloid cover model;

But her third dimension

Remains in the dark;

No one asks of her soul

As if she could exist

As pretty skin

Covering nothing.

Having seen someone as flawless

In a particularly good light

The illusion crumbles

Under the harsh weight of reality.

That’s the problem with beauty;

Under the surface of a perfect painting

Remnants of rough drafts

Rough pencil sketches,

Flawed structures, wrong colors

Hold up the facade of perfection

Before the elements turn them to dust.

Nothing is ever as it seems

And we are ill-acquainted

With the full dimensions

Of even those closest to us;

We’re just fans of the reflections

We pretend others see.

Saying we truly know someone

Is like claiming to be able

To recite a book by memory

Having only seen the cover.

We look to the stars and cosmos

For unsolved mysteries and intrigue

But there is more inside one human soul

That has never felt the weight

Of human footprints

Than all the territories

And domains of the infinite.

THEN & NOW

I remember the stories an old man used to tell

Of war, and heroes made in battle,

They stormed across Germany and fought evil

Like knights of old attacking a castle.

He used to say how one good man of ours

Was worth a dozen or more of the enemy’s; 

Brothers at war who would die for each other

Living past death in history’s memory.

Earlier today I saw a flame war on twitter—

They fought with weapons of misspelled words,

Their shells were snarky comments, a retweet button,

And a bag full of voraciously vulgar verbs.

This great battle of history, fought on the Internet

Is the legacy for that teenage boy’s future son

To follow in his footsteps, to be like his father

He’ll start his own twitter war and make sure it’s won.

I remember the romance story of my grandfather

He pursued his one love year after year

Won her love and affection with sweet words, kindness,

And he never let the sun set with her in tears.

On Facebook I read the screenshotted flirtations

Of a 25-year-old and his current female fling;

They had no tall tale of loving romance but,

They hooked up in the back of a Burger King.

Are all the great stories already lived out?

Is there nothing left for my generation?

I pray we may find something better than

‘Hashtag relationship goals’ for inspiration.

FEMME

I heard a rich white woman say

The only glass ceilings women have to deal with

Are the ones they put in their villas.

Of course, she married rich

Or, perhaps I should say, divorced rich

So now she’s more than half a man;

But I don’t think she had it quite right

Because while I’m enjoying a hearty breakfast

My friend applies makeup society says she needs

To be beautiful; how’s that not sexist?

So much media attention on women’s bodies

That half of them nearly go anorexic

Trying to live up to photoshopped ideals

That are impossible, but still expected.

Are you comfortable in your own skin?

The automatic answer should be yes

But, no, we live in a society where

We force false ideals and wrongly stress

Ideas that should’ve died decades ago;

In every way, a woman should be less

Than men, and the most naked she can be

Is when she’s getting undressed.

From television to advertising

Women are presented as objects and prizes

We’re so tolerant we don’t realize it.

Sex sells, and it’s cheap but so costly

We don’t consider the by-products

Of this cancer on society.

The effects are far-reaching and devastating;

A girl in a room with no self-worth

With slit wrists, blood on a Bill Nye poster

Because society told her science was men’s turf;

A girl crying, tears flowing from her eyes

Saying her birth gender was a curse

She would’ve been the world’s best eye doctor

But now she’ll try to be eye candy, and that’s worse.

The science guy, Mr. President, Renaissance man

Embedded in our very words are these thoughts

Passed down to the next generation without question

It’s like a massive cultural blind spot

We give men an education, but women are taught

To define themselves by men, and not

To define themselves by themselves;

Fight for who you are and what you want.