Leaders of Tomorrow

My generation has a right to be angry,
Angry at the dying world
We are inheriting from our parents.
Angry, at the senseless acts of discrimination
That are considered the norm
To the eyes of most.
We are the leaders of tomorrow,
Yet we are called lazy,
Technology-addicted,
And good for nothing.
Have you ever stopped to think
That the rising levels of anxiety
And depression
In teenagers today
Are linked to this problem?
By the judgment alone
Of the media,
And of the impossible beauty standards
We have to comply to.
By the perfect grades we must get,
And the enormous tuition
We must work two jobs,
And 50 hours a week
To pay off.
This was not our doing,
For we were but infants
When the previous generations
Decided our fate.
They decided that this would be
Our problem,
Think about it for a moment,
We must save the planet,
It's animals and it's plants,
But not start any wars,
Or offend anyone.
We must be the saviors of humanity,
The light in the dark.
We have been given
An impossible task
By the leaders of yesterday.
All that we are asking
Is that history
Not judge us too harshly,
For the people and the leaders we will need to become,
In order to survive.

Empires

Enough.
It is time for a change.
We will no longer stand by,
We will not let you hand us
A broken world.
We have had enough,
Enough of this game of power.
Our sisters dismissed,
For no other reason than their gender.
Our forests and wildlife,
Sacrificed to Greed.
Our youth, unable to find work,
And burdened with enormous debt
From an education they were told they needed.
History says that Empires
Collapse from within.
Well hold tight my darling,
For here it comes.
The tidal wave, the earth-shaking
Last drop that sends us all over
Into darkness, while the ones in power
Struggle to stay on top.
Things must change,
People must be taught once more
How to care for others,
That we cannot eat our money,
Nor can it buy us a better world.
Our blindness to what truly matters
Demonstrates our ignorance of our race,
For how can we help others,
When we cannot help ourselves.
In a world where promoting equality
Is considered a threat,
Where the color of your skin
Determines your worth.
Humanity is not cattle,
We are not simple machines
That exist only for revenue,
And easily replaced once broken.
This is how the world works now,
And this must change,
For an Empire that ignores its people
Is an Empire destined to fall.

The World We Find In Books

Once a reader always a reader, they
Would tell me, as I opened a new book,
And discovered a new world. I made new
Friends, and for a moment, they were real.

When I was told reading was nerdy, and
Deeply frowned upon, I was confused. My
Young mind could not understand why people
Despised these innocent words on a page.

Many years, and many books later, I
Have come to the conclusion that people
Are scared of books, of the worlds, of the themes,
The ideas that are held within them.

They don't want us asking questions, so that
We may believe everything they say, that
This is where we belong, and we should not
Aspire to anything greater. They are

Greedy, feeding the uneducated,
The close-minded, and the extremists. Books
Free the reader of reality, make
Them understand that there is hope for a

Better world. One where people are free to
Chose their own path, make their own lives, away
From religious or patriarchal ways,
Freeing the oppressed, giving them a voice.