Chasing life in pitiful, endless cycles
The youth are going in circles
The you are going nowhere
And the youth and the you in me
Are getting tired of running on this wheel
In this stupid aluminum cage

They’ve got us on display to the rest of
Whatever
Whatever’s left is looking down on us
Looking and pushing and keeping down
Us
They’re amused when our arms being to frown
But, of course, refuse to let up
On beating us down

We’re the slaves of the 21st century
We spend 24 hours of 7 days of 52 weeks
Of every year we get a little older and no wiser
Wasted on entertainment they’re come up with
To distract us wile we’re being poked and prodded
So they can find out what makes us tick

And so, we don’t notice that tick divorced tock
And time has stopped and clocks are rewinding
Back to a time when we could not
Would not
Did not
We refused to drop
Even with our backs to the wall, fighting and dying
We refused to stop

Now what’s left of us?
Time’s left us in its hypnotic sandy dust
Another one bites the dust
Another one bite the dust

And another
And another

Thirteen year old boy on the news
Leaving channels 7 and 10 fighting for the scoop
Leaving his aunts and uncles with black heart holes
After he murdered those who raised and loved him
Gave him food
Shoes, and
Clothes

And another
And another

Confused little girl crying on the side of the road
Accepts the hand of a man; he promises to make her whole
He takes her to the twentieth floor balcony, high above
And once again promises to show her the real meaning of love
She’s tired of living life half undone
And does nothing to hold onto herself
Until finally, he’s done
She looks into the mirror
Expecting to see herself as one
But her image and mind refuse to combine
And before herself, she breaks
To become, again, a sad, crying little girl

And another
And another

Example of us being brainwashed by the whatever
Doomed to forever in hellish cycles, never anything better
To do with their time after school, those #$@*
Interrupted our serenity with their shouts of animosity
Racial slurs and simple, concentrated hostility

They wonder why authority has an affinity for them

Those boys had the audacity to say
“We don’t like your kind; better stay away”
And attacked us under the watchful eyes of day

They have no idea
They don’t see the whatevers scoff at their stupidity
Don’t see them label us all under one unity

As a generation, we’re a novelty
That can’t struggle through novels
We’re a whole filled with holes
And that pun slipped right through them

We are intolerable cruelty
Born into a life of penury
We come from the city of night
A pretentious world
Forever on display

It’s the show that never ends
Even when we hyperventilate
We’re still on display
And that’s the way we will stay
We will stay unless

We gather the dust and recognize time
Ignore whatever that renders us blind
Find the tombs of the greats and pay our respects
Take action for what’s right with no regrets

So that when tick and tock reunite
We know that our time was worth the fight.