I hear people say the best minds of my generation were destroyed.
By what, I wonder.
Companies prioritize profit over people
Crushing lives, with as little consequence as stepping on a blade of grass.
But like grass, my generation bounces back.
We seek out water and sun, the essentials needed to grow, hidden by the clouds from the
machines made by those before us.
Like grass, we tried to gather in clumps, supporting a system,
Hoping it will one day support us.

Governments gamble with the lives of the governed.
Like a game of chess, their strategy is to protect the powerful.
But chess cannot be won with only a king and queen.
The bigger picture is that all the pieces matter.
The queen protects the king, but the knights protect the queen.
The rooks help the knights, while the castles keep the base safe.
The pawns fight for the king and queen, believing they will fight for them in return.
One wins in chess by having all the power levels serve each other.
Children go to school, expected to learn.
How can they learn, knowing they will never be safe?

Lesson one in school: expect to be hurt.
Expect to be huddled in a corner, waiting for saviors who might never show up.
Told not to cry because that might give away where you are.
Lesson two in life: adults don’t care. Not unless it takes away their property.
They arm each other, ignoring that by doing so they are sentencing their sons and daughters to
death.
Their mouths tell the children that they will take care of them, while their hands continue passing
out ammunition.

The elders say, be happy with what we were given.
We were given a dying world, and are told to lie down and die with it.
We were given a world at war, and are told to stay quiet to avoid making it worse.
They gave us a ticking bomb and insist it is a gift.

I hear my generation say we are the future.
We will be the government that stops the wars.
We will be the companies who care about more than coins.
We will be the seeds, replant the forests that protected us so long ago.
We will inherit what they gave us, and nurse it back to health.