To Be a Teen in 2019 by Wyatt Patterson
So what’s left today that hasn’t been said?
After the moms and the leaders who’ve inspired and pled
Well, let me see if I can set the scene:
Try being a teen in 2019
Some generations practiced for nuclear attack
My generation wears a bulletproof backpack
Both hiding under desks, but it isn’t the same
Our shootings happen daily, your bombs never came
Try being a teen in 2019
Each new shooting, each new killer gets their headlines
While students are mourned with teddy bear shrines
“How’d he do it? Why’d he do it?” questions endlessly asked
Then you turn off the TV and you have to go back to class
Try being a teen in 2019
You try paying attention
You wonder who has a gun
Plan which way you would run
Or sit silent and still
Through a lockdown drill
And wonder if it happens, when it happens
Who will you text your last words to
As you stare at the door he’ll come through
Are these the last people I’ll see
If the door opens and he comes for me?
Yeah, try being a teen in 2019
Each time they say “Never again”
Which becomes ironic when
It happens over and over without end
And they continue to pretend
Like the violence will suspend
That the people they defend
Whose lives upon them depend
That this time they’ll somehow transcend
That broken bonds will somehow mend
That the children lost will somehow comprehend
That despite what we intend
Guns - mattered - more - than - friends
So from the students, a plea:
Do something
Do it please
We want to show up
We want to grow up
We are tired of crying
And we are tired of dying
Make it a little easier, a little safer, a little less extreme
To be a teen in 2019
Wyatt Patterson is a recent graduate of Caesar Rodney High School and incoming freshman at the University of Delaware. She is the newly appointed State Director of March For Our Lives Delaware. If you are a student and interested in putting an end to senseless gun violence, contact Wyatt at MFOLDelaware@gmail.com