Grown Ups, A Slam Poetry Piece
By Brendan Jones O'Connor
Today is March 2nd, 2012. I graduate in 70 days.
Come May 20th, I will have a tassel cocking my head in one direction,
and a goofy smile for my parents
in the other.
I'm graduating a year early, and I'm scared
I'm going to turn into one of
“Those people.” You know,
the coffee-house urchins working on their screenplays,
the trust fund babies with all reception and no wedding,
the kids who swear by vinyl and start indie bands with sentence fragments for names and all their music sounds like acoustic guitar blah-blah and Radiohead knock-offs,
the political junkies who argue about capital-S Socialism verses Anarcho-sydndicalism and agree big buisness is bad, but still smoke cigarettes as if Lung Cancer is a myth invented by the republicans along with their anti-pot propaganda,
the graduate students that hit on freshmen girls and worship the remains of Michel Foucault,
the person with a college education who spends their time simply surviving in the hip part of town,
from the Soho sinners and Williamsberg Weirdos, to the Keywest Kids, to the Asheville Aimless, to the Ann Arbor Artists, to the Lincoln Park Lunatics, to the Austin Amateurs, to the Berkeley Bohemians, to the Portland Pamphleteers and Potheads.
Oh, dear Lord, I'm someone who doesn't know what they want to do with their life,
and I am so very, very scared
I'm going to turn into that
25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30-year-old person who,
between their soy latte and American Spirits, says,
and I quote,
“I don't really know what I want to do with my life.”
There was a girl at my high school who died in her senior year tragically,
her senior quote was this:
“What you do with your days is what you do with your life.”
I don't know what I want to do with my life,
but I'm already doing it.
I'm already living this
life.
Come May 20th, I'll be given a chance to live something a little different,
a person not in school.
Wait, wait, wait, let's think of that,
I have been in school continuously since I have gained consciousness,
which was sometime around 1994.
And now I'll be allowed to set sail in a dinky little schooner
past the pillars of Hercules at the Straits of Gibrulter.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'm not sure when life begins,
but I do know one thing,
we're living it right now.
Never forget that.
By Brendan Jones O'Connor
Today is March 2nd, 2012. I graduate in 70 days.
Come May 20th, I will have a tassel cocking my head in one direction,
and a goofy smile for my parents
in the other.
I'm graduating a year early, and I'm scared
I'm going to turn into one of
“Those people.” You know,
the coffee-house urchins working on their screenplays,
the trust fund babies with all reception and no wedding,
the kids who swear by vinyl and start indie bands with sentence fragments for names and all their music sounds like acoustic guitar blah-blah and Radiohead knock-offs,
the political junkies who argue about capital-S Socialism verses Anarcho-sydndicalism and agree big buisness is bad, but still smoke cigarettes as if Lung Cancer is a myth invented by the republicans along with their anti-pot propaganda,
the graduate students that hit on freshmen girls and worship the remains of Michel Foucault,
the person with a college education who spends their time simply surviving in the hip part of town,
from the Soho sinners and Williamsberg Weirdos, to the Keywest Kids, to the Asheville Aimless, to the Ann Arbor Artists, to the Lincoln Park Lunatics, to the Austin Amateurs, to the Berkeley Bohemians, to the Portland Pamphleteers and Potheads.
Oh, dear Lord, I'm someone who doesn't know what they want to do with their life,
and I am so very, very scared
I'm going to turn into that
25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30-year-old person who,
between their soy latte and American Spirits, says,
and I quote,
“I don't really know what I want to do with my life.”
There was a girl at my high school who died in her senior year tragically,
her senior quote was this:
“What you do with your days is what you do with your life.”
I don't know what I want to do with my life,
but I'm already doing it.
I'm already living this
life.
Come May 20th, I'll be given a chance to live something a little different,
a person not in school.
Wait, wait, wait, let's think of that,
I have been in school continuously since I have gained consciousness,
which was sometime around 1994.
And now I'll be allowed to set sail in a dinky little schooner
past the pillars of Hercules at the Straits of Gibrulter.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'm not sure when life begins,
but I do know one thing,
we're living it right now.
Never forget that.
interesting. don't worry-you'll figure it out. Or, if you are unlucky, you'll get pushed into something you know isn't "you", but pays well. And one day, you'll break out of that too, and do something you're proud of. In the meantime, keep writing!
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