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