I watched my friends grow,

I watched my friends grow, starved of their childhood playgrounds by the hands of maturity and

shoved onto the narro, exclusve path to success, unpaved.

One changed too much, the way her puffy cheeks pulled her lips into a gentle smile was

slapped off by the unforgiving hand of public school, now her smile comes solely from her teeth.

One didn't change at all, she will always be the spitting image of her high-strung, old

fashioned mother, dragged through life by the number in her parent's bank account.

One hasn't slept in years, bloodshot eyes covered with ash-black shadows,fixated on te

way her curtains draped gently in front of the streetlight, everynight, her heart beating to the tick of lost time.

One didn't wake up, he drowned himself in his cognitive tsunami, filling every empty

spae with a demo that made him feel something, anything, until it consumed him whole.

One got out, he threw all our memories into a cardboard box and shoved them down by throat,

cut every heart string connected to the valley and the park ad me, and dragged his pride

across the map.

One came to late, she cut and beat herself into a shape that fit the puzzle, but hr

tenacious god complex refused to be anything more than itself, a civil war between belonging

and becoming.

One found love, her heart rejected prince charming throwing pebbles at her window,

lusting after the princess across the street, but a kingdom based on outdone age-old tales

doesn't understand.

Our generation, called the independent, selfish, anxious, internet addicted by-products of

a crashed economy and intolerant ancestry, but we are not who our parents were.

The world as we know it, how we have known it, how we are going to know it, is pushed

and pulled and molded, unsettling, by the hands of my friends, brothers, sisters and me.