Quintessential 21st Century Teenager



“In the twenty-first century, we use a nineteenth-century school model with twentieth-century values.”
~ Zander Sherman

He wakes up when the sun is highest,
He gets on to play with his friends,
His mood is jovial, until
the harsh reality of life kicks in.

His report of letters arrives when the sun is hidden,
into his parents’ inbox.
They charge into his room, pointing at
the countless C’s and D’s, expressing
their utter disappointment at
his abysmal performance,
but their vexation be justified.
However, the fault lies with neither child nor parent.

It lies with the dystopia they call ‘school’, said to be
a place where creativity flourishes.
Rather it is a prison, where we are
the inmates, who
follow a routine.
We enter the cell,
We sit,
We listen,
We write,
We watch the clock tick an hour later,
We leave.
We repeat this every day of our convivial youth.
Well, not convivial.
We become fatigued, apathetic, filled with angst,
anger, anxious.

Amidst this chaos, we find solace
in lyrics.
From Dylan, to Cobain, to Eminem, to Juice,
their raw emotion transforms our frustration to felicity
gives us calm in this storm of madness.
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Submitted on June 18, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

58 sec read
21

Quick analysis:

Scheme AB XXXX BACXCXXX DXXXXXXBXXXXXXE EXXDE
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,125
Words 196
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 2, 4, 8, 15, 5

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