Yesterday’s Children
We are yesterday’s children:
judged by a standard curriculum, teaching everything
but nothing of merit.
where possibilities are limited
to what you’ll inherit.
who are treated by teachers in accordance to our last names
and the playing field and game may be the same
however the rules are conveniently changed.
who are labeled and valued like livestock,
fattened with propaganda,
stamped and sent out into the world
for a life of slaughter.
conveyor-belt creations,
molded, reconfigured
and stripped of identity
to meet the approved specifications.
We are yesterday’s children:
housebound en route to mental institutions,
crippled by several forms of anxiety disorders
and day one depression.
who start each day with an assortment of prescribed pharmaceuticals
and end each night strung out on recreationals.
big dreamers paralyzed in the consciousness of daylight,
sweet talkers over radio transmissions -
yet muted by genuine social interactions.
who fight anything that doesn’t hit back
and take flight whenever we feel the slight ruffling
of our consumer groomed feathers.
We are yesterday’s children:
born into a middle-class lie,
where the only truth is the great divide.
living in a constant state of economic recession,
bound by debt, student loans, car loans
and spending our entire lives
paying for possessions we’ll never own.
consumers of cheap mass-made goods,
diners of artificial injurious foods.
wearing suits, and uniforms
in our best effort to conform,
walking the straight line with our foolish dangling ties,
and buying into the idea that we’re swimming against the tide,
and that we’re somehow unique.
individuality as authentic as the papers we read
to see the crack painted truth.
We are yesterday’s children:
who have tasted the fruit of good and evil
from a box or out of a bottle,
and experienced that sacred wisdom
bestowed by inebriation.
and experienced the morning-after betrayal
in sudden hung-over realization,
only to accept that there is no pain greater
than sobriety’s clarity.
masters of the arts in defensive mechanisms,
users and abusers
of all available vices to numb the reality.
too old to seek refuge in yesterday’s sanctuaries,
too smart phone wise
to find tranquility in today’s illusions,
and too damaged to see hope in tomorrow’s fantasies.
