Becoming the People | Teen Ink

Becoming the People

May 30, 2008
By Grania O&#39Meara BRONZE, New York, New York
Grania O&#39Meara BRONZE, New York, New York
4 articles 0 photos 0 comments

We are becoming the people,
The ones we swore we’d never be.
Youthful ideals give way to practicality,
Reaching the twilight of optimism.
We are the people we would mock.
Present and accounted for? “Present.”

Does it terrify you, the poison of time,
Becoming the product of society,
With a price sticker and a barcode,
Leaving behind that rebellious way
That you once questioned everything,
In favor of realism, routine?

How could that boy, a quiet math geek,
Become, in two years, everything he despises?
Thrift shops and Converse morph into
Abercrombie and Fitch, blond highlights.
Exchanging contentment with poison-laced bitterness,
And, um, he like, spoke like this for real.

And her, she swore that she’d be satisfied,
Just as long as she tried her hardest,
But then, “trying her hardest” shifted from A’s
To a few B’s. GPA’s calculated daily,
Extra credit, grade grubbing.
Success measured by numbers.

Then, perhaps, the worst--
The realization that it was a conscious, willing change,
Going from point A to B, never dancing in the rain.
Society, peer pressure, it was never at fault,
Because no one ever forced you to become
The person you became.


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