Be Seen and Not Heard.

One of the most fatal statements

For a child, an unfortunate stagnation

Of intelligent thought and the process

Of forming their own kind of fixation,

And I’m sorry to admit,

This is formed from a vexation.

Not a vendetta. Not a revolution.

I won’t even raise my voice,

I just want to ask one question.

 

“Why must we be seen and not heard?”

 

The question so many have wanted to ask,

But every time we try we’re struck down as absurd.

Well I hate to break it to you guys,

To be honest you created this

When you took away our freedoms,

Which I admit is kinda silly, I mean,

You preach, pry, yell and throw tantrums

When we step out of the invisible line that you have formed around us.

But wait. Give me a break! Aren’t you the ones who said

“Do something with yourself do you want our hearts to break?”

 

That’s right. While we certainly have our faults

Has it ever occurred that you needed to try, too?

Just think. One time. One choice that we were given.

Did you think that we would stop once we got a taste of the freedom?

We’re shut up in school where we learn to mind our manners,

But then taught how to reason and argue,

Think for ourselves.

 

This is what you teach us.

How to try to stand tall on our own,

To be our own person.  Then I must ask,

 

"How?"

 

How can we possibly grow when we are stuck in the cage

Of the rules of the past. Given new abilities and no room to use them.

If we’re taught to be your little soldiers,

Then you’ve not done a great job,

Or we’d do just what you tell us,

With as simple as a nod.

 

But we’re not soldiers, obeying without thought,

You know this. You encourage this.

But why, at the crowing of our adulthood,

The most ancient rite of passage,

Do we get stripped of this title? This responsibility?

This complete and irrevocable honor that must be so wrongly struck,

From our hands, who are just searching, reaching out to find

Who we are, and cling on.

Guys. That’s hard to do from inside of a cage.

Stop treating us like children when we finally come of age.

 

Because let me tell you. This isn’t about acting out.

I don’t want revenge, or revolution.

This isn’t even about my situation.

I just need to let you know, when we’re seen and not heard,

It hurts where it isn’t seen.

So now I’ve taken this opportunity to come clean,

I don’t want to be isolated, by you or others,

I respect you, as our fathers and mothers.

I’m not mad, just driven, for a change in how we’re treated.

 

I’m not a kid. I’m no longer a child. I’ll admit I don’t know everything,

But one thing, let’s be honest. That’s what I feel like.

I don’t need everything. I don’t want a free ride.

I need to know that we are listened to, and someone is on our side.