Mourning Skies

Invincible

I remember hearing tale after tale
Of the adventures of the aged
As teenagers

Stories of running from police
To smoking pot at weddings
From egging the neighborhood
To crashing their cars on the freeway
And a constant phrase
Used in their stories:
"When you're a teenager
You think you're invincible"

And I can't help but imagine
What it was like back then
And wonder what went wrong

Today I glance around
Every high school student
With music blared
Pounding their fist in anger
Throwing each other into lockers
Sitting in corners of the room in tears
Desperately clutching at their chest
Paralyzed with the dear that if they let go
Their heart will stop
Teachers ignoring their cries
Glancing over scarred thighs
Adults who cannot understand
Repeating the same belief that
"None of this existed when I was your age
They come up with a diagnosis
For everything these days"

They cannot understand
They cannot perceive
What we see
Everywhere I look
Frozen in horror
Flinching at a raised hand
Cornered in their room
By the demons that snuck their way
Into their minds
With a viselike grip on their sanity

This generation
Is anything but invincible
We shake from our very cores
And our words come out
In strangled gasps

But reckless we will remain
Not so much in the belief
That nothing could happen
But more so in the hopes
That something does