Semicolon Closed Parentheses
Why is it
That a ninth-grade Honors English teacher has to tell thirteen, fourteen and fifteen year-olds
Not to look up ideas for a slam poem assignment
Why is it
That after he has said this
A collective sigh sounds around the room
Why is it
That we believe websites: Pinterest, Tumblr, and YouTube
Can be more creative than ourselves
Why is it
That this society is so reliant on the internet to think for them
Why is that?
When you are born
Kicking and screaming
Your parents look at you
Proud
And a little disgusted
You are a small piece of each of them
And you have the possibility to be so much
As a baby you follow the movement of their lips
The sound of their voice
How each of them say
“Daddy”
or “Mommy”
or “Baby”
or “Love”
And soon you can say those words just as they did
In a few years
Once you can crawl, walk, jump, leap
Once you can talk in full sentence segments
They teach you what they have learned
They tell you what they think
And what they believe you should think
They tell you what religion is best
Along with what sports team
Or what qualities
They tell you
How you should act
Who you should be friends with
What words to speak loud and proud
And what words to press down your stomach down to the tips of your toes
Never to be uttered
They press their ideas into your mind
Like puzzle pieces
forcing to fit without breaking
As you begin school
You rely on teachers
They teach you how to spell
Or write
Or socialize
They teach you how to read
They teach you words you have never heard before
And they teach you how to be creative
you develop thoughts on your own
New animals
New places
Things believed to have never existed before your existence
And you have your own ideas
And you have the ones your parents gave to you
Soon you develop friends
And they each have ideas their parents bestowed onto them
And in order to “fit in”
You take their ideas on as your own
Believing what they believe
Thinking what they think
And you rely on that
And you think other people's ideas
Are better than your own
You only show what other people have told you
Keeping your own voice at the base of your throat
Letting other’s voices cover yours up
As you grow up your parents and friends teach you new things
So do your teachers
You develop consistent individuals
To quote without citation
In everyday conversation
Years later, the age is also when society grabs you
Their icy hands slowly start to wrap around your waist
You watch tv shows
Depicting beautiful men and women
You want to look like
The hands grab on your waist and you feel as if you cannot breathe
You read books
That depict every person as being original
And you want to be them
The hands pull stronger
You get a phone
Just for texting or calling
The hands are pulling you so fast you feel like you are free-falling
You get a social media account
Doesn't matter which one you started with
Because every victim of social media ends up in the same place
The hands are comforting know, a safe place for you to relax
This is when the relationships you have created begin to falter
You barely talk to your parents
You answer their questions with one word answers
Cause you need to check
Vine
Snapchat
and Tumblr
For validation you seem to crave from strangers
You never talk to your friends in person anymore
Text is easier
It is better to hide behind a phone screen
Than to connect to another human being
You don't pay attention in class
Any other form of media on your screen
Is more entertaining
Your teachers don't say anything anymore
You have been disconnected from class for a while now
One of your teachers is teaching about brains
“The human brain is a galaxy
Full of utterly astounding sights
And bright lights
The human brain has 100 billion neurons
Millions of synapses firing commands like a machine gun
Using it’s bullets until it has none
Sadly, most people these days don't use theirs”
You’re not listening
You begin to believe that acronyms are creative
They’re not
Acronyms cut off the meaning of words
chopping of the limbs and letting it bleed
Until it is left
With nothing
You Tweet
“School Sux”
With an x instead of a ck
You tweet
“#yolo”
“#ballin”
“#kyliejenner”
“#nike”
“#jordans”
“#peace”
You Instagram
A #selfie
Two fingers cover your face
The peace sign had more meaning
It used to represent peace, hope and faith
And now it is used to cover up your face
You Pin
Workout Challenges
Makeup Tutorials
Diet plans
You follow inspiring quotes on tumblr
You scroll through facebook liking things others have liked even if you don't like them
You are a sheep following the crowd
You are a zombie
You are a Tin Man with no heart
And a scarecrow with no brain
Your older sibling says to you
There are no new ideas
And you think about this
You realize they are right
There are no new ideas
You try to think of a response
There are no new ideas
You realize that you have no ideas
Just like everyone else
There are no new ideas
You rely on old ideas
You rely on your parents ideas
You rely on your friends ideas
You rely on your teacher's ideas
Because
There are no new ideas
You know when you say a word over and over again and it begins to lose all meaning?
I feel everyone knows this
And we test it out
over and over
when we are little
And you would think
We would realize that we do this everyday
When we say the same things over and over again
The same conversations
The same words
In the same voice
Over and over
And it loses all meaning
You are older now
Puberty hit you like a brick wall
And you sit in English class
In ninth grade
On your phone
As your Honors English teacher drones
About slam poetry
Your head snaps up from your screen as he says social media
“You are not allowed to look up ideas for your slam poem assignment”
You wont be able to make it on your own without the internet
You are too far down the rabbit hole
And you love the icy hands that are pulling you farther and faster into blankness
Websites can think better than you
And you sigh
You rely too much on the internet to think for you