Hey Emo Kid, Your Life Doesn't Suck

Hey Emo Kid, Your Life Doesn't Suck

Hey emo kid, your life doesn’t suck.

hey emo kid,
your life doesn’t suck

You aren’t an old woman who
gets her worn clothes,
her broken furniture,
her torn books,
and her chipped china from the thrift store
because she can’t afford anything else.

You aren’t an inner city kid
who won’t get a higher education
because public school can’t teach
the five kids who care.

You aren’t a little boy who
watched his parents starve to death
so he could have the handful of corn kernels
they scavenged from the dirt
while their leader pours money
into an empty city.

You aren’t a little girl who was only fourteen
in the deserts of Darfur,
who had two children and polio,
but no doctor to tell her there’s a cure.

Well, I think you’re wrong.
My dad blocked Myspace.
My mom wants me to be like everyone else.
My best friend stabbed me in the back.
My phone doesn’t have unlimited texting.
My girlfriend dumped me.
My life sucks.

Emo kid, your soul isn't black;

You aren’t a single mother on welfare,
sung to sleep by the song
of her children’s stomachs
because the food stamps ran out.

You aren’t a soldier who still feels the
carbon dioxide and flames
scorching the image of
a child into his memory,
the child that blew himself up
– to kill him.

You’re not a little blond girl,
living in a shack in Honduras
who looks like she’s four
but she’s actually seven,
and she’s never said a single word.

your life doesn’t suck.