Teen's Speech

These days youth is worshipped,

Projected as divine.

It's hungered for,

Constructed,

Age is coming for us,

We're clutching on to magazines

To offer all the tactics

To prolong the prime.

And so we're saving up for surgery,

Forcing our bodies back through time.

While images of youth

Permeate the city,

And they germinate within us,

Make us pity age and hate ourselves for ageing.

While ten-year-olds are increasingly impatient for their golden teenage years,

Desperate for puberty to make them grown.

'Cause it's depicted as so glamorous.

So now we're amorous

For scandalous accounts of

Teenage parents,

Young addictions,

Dysfunctions,

Or depictions of the violence

Rampant on our country's streets.

We've objectified the youth,

So we don't hear them when they speak.

And the whole of Britain is obsessed,

It seems,

With teens and how they live.

They're fascinating,

'Cause they've still got time

To do something with their young minds.

But here's the rift;

These days kids are either demonised

Or exalted,

Either painfully shy

Or ferocious,

Either bursting with ambition,

Or beaten down and hopeless,

Absorbing our examples and our manufactured neuroses.

But they're not a grainy CCTV hoodie,

Or an episode of skins;

They're just people,

Like we all are.

With nervous grins and awkward limbs.

Some are young carers,

Looking after parents with depression.

And some are getting bullied,

Trying not to let people's ignorance upset them.

While some are sitting in their bedrooms

Just unmotivated,

Lazy,

Signing on every fortnight,

Thinking "I wish someone had made me see before

How hard it is

To get back in to a system you've dropped out of."

While some are striving to be happy,

Doing things they're really proud of.

See they're not generic.

They're not all aggressive,

Loitering by cash dispensers.

Some are young mums,

Holding down good jobs at Marks and Spencers.

Some are out stealing everything they can get away with stealing,

And some are supporting younger siblings

Off the profits made from dealing.

Some are learning what their morals are,

Through exploring their sensations.

While some are shouldering responsibilities in quiet resignation.

Some enjoy their education,

Just like some rebel against it.

Some are fierce about their territory

And would do anything to defend it.

And yes some of them are blazing skunk and boozing.

Most will take a punch for moving

In a different way,

But it makes us who we are.

And some prey on weakness like some protect it.

Some are lost and disaffected.

Some are hungry for successes;

They want something and they're out to get it.

Some are exhibitionists,

Others want to stay hidden.

Luckily most are sick and tired of prejudice and racism.

But some face prison with the prison-face,

They're excited at the prospect.

And some are grappling with concepts;

Writing essays,

Making grades.

Some are playing games on their computers,

Totally absorbed in an artificial world,

'Cause in the real one

They're just bored.

Yeah some hate,

And some get hated.

And some find this inexcusable.

And some,

They hate themselves because they're sure that they're not beautiful enough,

And so they stuff themselves,

Or starve themselves,

And hate themselves,

And harm themselves,

While some are moving through life quietly,

With a heart that swells with happiness.

Compassionate.

Or self involved and arrogant.

They're on their way to dropping out of

Or buying into

The establishment.

'Cause they're just people,

At a stage of life that everyone must go through.

Some of them are bound for greatness.

Some of them are bound to waste it.

Just like every generation that has been

And all those still to come.

They've got the potential to change everything,

And we love them,

'Cause they're still so young.