[New-Poetry] Self-Preservation of the 80's Babies (A Poem)

[Stephanie Barnes]

Self-Preservation of the ‘80’s Babies

When we were younger
our parents could protect us
built large brick walls and privacy
fences to lock us in, chased
away boogeymen and imagined
mental manifestations that haunted us
in the dark shadows
of our rooms.  But, we have grown-up
from chubby, sticky-
fingered toddlers to hardhearted pieces
of walking jade.  We have watch the world,
our world, be twisted
leaving us unable to hide behind
our parents’ one-way mirror walls.

We were the children, innocent
once, who avidly watched
cartoons, while blowing bubble dreams
into our cereal…

We were your preteens working
through the pieces of our broken families
rising awkwardly on spindly lank legs
we stumbled, tripped through facades
and fads, faking our way to angst.

We were your teenagers un-use
to the hard leanness of our young adulthood.  Unafraid
of a violent world that had come to cradle us.
We were the ones who mixed
self-mutilation with fear and sex
who made piercings, tattoos, and scars signs
of beauty.  We were the ones
who learned to cautiously watch our classmates
for swift changes in mood
we’d learned to be afraid
or ourselves, we were already afraid
of our world

So, that if now,
we do not smooth easily
into your waiting hugs it is not
because we love you less, but
because we have learned
to protect us more.