I am still young and I should be worried about,

The little things,

Lash outs and mood swings,

I should be slamming my door because my mom won’t let me stay out past nine,

And yes, I do complain about French class, that’s a weakness of mine,

But I am not worried,

About my Instagram feed,

I’m watching powerful people,

Telling people,

That they are not people at all

That they are not human enough to be,

Anything.

I see the news telling women,

That we don’t deserve equity of pay,

That we have to fight every day,

Just to get an unheard say,

That we should be elegant,

But never eloquent,

Demure,

And pure,

And delicate,

Angelic and,

Sugar and spice and everything nice,

And I am made of more.

I see the news telling the refugees,

The immigrants,

The people with skin to match mine,

To go home, Turned away at the border line,

Because their papers are invalid?

No, because you are inhumane,

Because our world is insane,

And you take their children away,

Tell them to defend themselves in court,

At five years old, when the most important,

Thing should be learning,

Their letters in a kindergarten class,

They may never be given the chance to attend.

I see the news telling the kids,

The Generation Z,

That I have to leave my fate,

In the hands, of those who created,

These ruins,

The truth is,

I see.

you’ve taken the world,

there’s none left for me,

That it’ll be rubble before I get my college degree,

That I have twelve years left, so spend them wisely,

And I want to make it past twenty six!

How come the only change I see is in the climate?

And the power still turns a blind eye to it,

Denies it,

We don’t have the luxury of ignorance,

Anymore,

How can you ignore,

All this truth,

All this proof,

Global warming is real.

We are wearing down,

Weighed down by bricks,

Of real problems,

And they’re throwing sticks,

And stones, and words,

And all of it hurts.

And it’s tempting to hide away,

And wish the world away,

Because reality is just too hard to face today,

But we are still standing,

We are not going to break,

And we will stand here and take,

Every punch you throw,

And we will not let go,

Of our hope.

And you will not knock us down,

We will always stand up,

We will always stand my ground,

We will fix the mess that I didn’t make,

We will flip the world upside down,

We will reach down from the pedestal of privilege,

We get to sit upon,

And we will pull others up onto,

The plateau,

The peak of hope, where we, where I,

Can still see the blue sky,

Where we still have more time.

Where we can still see the light.