#The Poet at Fifteen

[ragewrites]

During the fall leading up to my fifteenth birthday, I came very, very close to committing suicide. Today I turned twenty-five. I had that fifteen year old girl I almost wasn’t sit down with me for a metaphorical conversation.

transcript under cut:

[Fifteen Speaks to Twenty-Five] Leah Saint-John

Are you alive

Yes

Does it hurt

Yes

Are you glad

[instead of an answer there is a helpless look]

Is it all still green

Especially in June

Do you still love it

Especially in June

What colour is our blood

Garnet

It’s thickened

Yes

Is it a sickness

Yes

What does the garnet make you think of

Mouths God’s mouth The inside of His eye sockets

Are you happy

Sometimes

Is it enough

Sometimes

Are you lonely

Yes Garnet Like God

Did it get better

Yes No Yes Yes

Are you living

Yes Almost

[orangestripesblog]

[crowleysaziraphale2003]

Hi everyone! Here's a nonet (a type of poem where the syllable count starts at 9 per line and goes down to 1), which I wrote about Aziraphale and Crowley. Hope you guys will like it! 🩷🩷🩷

No Nightingales 

A pair of hands, pressed together 

as though in silent prayer, a

message in a bottle sent 

to the wrong address. The

nightingales pause their

melodies for

now, in their

grief. Damn

love. 

[stupidkupi]

i was fifteen when you left and i have been fifteen ever since.

unknown

[theasylumwheretheyraisedme]

Now that we’ve had a full week to process ttpd, drop some mashup possibilities in the tags I’m so curious

[thisismynamenowxpoetry]

ATTENTION GEN Z, I know we hate poetry, but please, if you've ever felt alone, or hated technology, or hated Gen Alpha, please read this, repost, do whatever, but please, this was written for all of you <3

The news this morning 

Was talking about how we go to Chat GPT

For therapy

And advice

And my mother said it’s just because we don’t know how

To communicate face to face

When why should we?

You shoved an iPad into our faces

The second we were old enough to comprehend it

You put on the TV

And we believed the characters were speaking live

And they could see us

Through those pixels

Why shouldn’t we turn to a computer

To give us answers

When it’s that that gave us the issues to begin with?

Why shouldn’t we

Chat with a computer

About nothing and everything

When it is that 

That made us feel so isolated?

People wonder

Why we’re so concerned about Gen Alpha

And it’s obvious

When we think about it

It’s not because they’re growing up too fast

It’s because we know what it’s like

To have wires shoved into our veins

And now

Now they were born with them

Already pulsing through their blood

We don’t want them to make the same mistakes we did

But I think it’s too late,

They’re already turning into what we don’t want

Anyone

To ever be

And it’s scary to watch,

We know what technology has done to us

And we don’t want to watch anyone else

Succumb to it like we did

We are the last generation

Who went outside to play

And know what birds sound like

And wish to break their phones

We are the last generation

That will ever

Ever 

Have a normal childhood

Now we can just watch

As the depression rates get higher

And more young children know what suicide is

Too early

And learn how to self harm

And lose their innocence

And be scared of men

And not care for dolls

We are scared of them

But we’re scared for them

Of course we turn to AI to talk to

Our parents don’t get it,

They can barely find opening hours for a shop,

While we can find a 10-step guide on how to murder,

Or build a bomb,

And guides on how to manipulate your body

And everything is at our fingertips

This is generational trauma that they have created

We can watch someone shooting their brains out

And we can receive photos from anyone

And why do we know what everything we shouldn’t worry about is?

We had COVID

And we turned to screens

And went on TikTok

And created trends

And it felt like a community

Until everyone was there

And we couldn’t do anything

And we got addicted

And we can’t turn back

We started with chat rooms

And we found like minded-people

And it was always “sweetie, be careful of creeps on the internet”

And now it’s just

“Be in bed by 10”

But we’ll keep scrolling

And we all have friends who live half the world away

And if you mention that

Someone has to ask if you’ve called yet

And “have you seen their face?”

We can look at anything

There are guides for everything

We know where Kim K was two minutes ago

And why do I feel pressure to always have something on my story?

We talk to robots

Because no adults will ever know

How sick we feel 

Before we go on our phones

No adults can know

How we’ve seen every scar

And depression become a trend

And we have to use the hashtag actuallyautistc

No adults will know

How there are video essays on anything

And we shouldn’t know about everyone that has been raped

Or murdered

And we shouldn’t have wikihow

On how to be attractive

It started as a joke,

How stupid is this thing I found?,

But we keep reading it

And we start to believe it

Why would we read books?

Technology is constantly advancing

Everything is irrelevant in months

And we must be careful not to be cancelled

And a dress can divide a nation

We don’t want to watch Gen Alpha

Leap so blindy into their screens

Trusting what they read,

We want to keep it for us,

We have to live with it,

And as much as they suck,

It is our fault for staying 

And posting everything

We are a sad generation with happy pictures

And a face full of makeup

And we’re just perpetuating stereotypes

And you can’t like something unless you’re obsessed

We can know the cure for any medical condition

But there is no guide on how to destory our screens

And lives

And I know I’m fifteen

But this is ruining mine,

And so many others' lives.

We don’t want to see little kids

On their mums phones

And my mother defends it,

Saying mums just need a minute to breathe,

But please

Anything else

I don’t want to see a baby already addicted to CocoMelon

We don’t want to see

More people falling into a hole

And we know it’s why we’re sad

But nobody else should have to go through it,

That’s for us,

That’s an us problem

I saw a six year old

Using Drunk Elephant

And swearing in her GRWM

And none of that is fair,

How are we letting this slide?

But we can’t do anything

Because we don’t want to admit there’s a problem

We can learn anything about Hitler

And anything about Meryl Streep

And it can be within the same two fucking clicks

I remember

When my age on TikTok clocked over to 15

A few days before my actual birthday

And it was then

That all I saw was suicide notes,

And self harm scars

And how to hide things from your parents guides

And abuse stories

There was no going back,

Every other person whose a teenage girl on the app

Is probably met with the same things as me

The algorithm

Is designed to show you a positive video

Every few scrolls

Just to keep you hooked,

And it works,

It’s a science,

It works to a T

We can know where any friend is

And read receipts plague us

And anything will be screenshot

And used against you

School thought taking away our phones 

Would fix this,

Like it’s a magical cure,

When all it’s teaching us

Is how addicted we are,

And how best to hide an earbud

And we need music to concentrate!

Or course we do,

We have constant stimulation

It is never quiet

There is always a voice talking

We are getting mad at kids for being on a phone

When we all know

We’re just mad that it is actually happening

And we can’t warn them

And no one will listen

Because how could it be that bad?

In ten years

People who grew up with technology 

Are going to end up with something like PTSD

Because we can’t let go of it

We can’t put it down,

We can get an essay written for us in seconds,

And Dall-E can make anything for us

So of course we’ll talk to AI,

It’s better than talking to a real person

And acting like we’re okay,

We’d rather sit behind a screen

And control sims

And listen to music

So we can’t hear our minds

Every time I scroll through

I’m met with tales of girls who get killed by their fathers,

Every time I scroll through

I’m showen another 7 second video

With sad litte text

On sad little faces

We want to escape,

We want to tear our veins out,

Rip the wires,

Shove them back in to our body

After we re-wire our brains,

Of course,

Because we can diagnose ourselfs with any mental illness

That we see fit

Because there has to be something wrong with you

We will never go back,

It is impossible 

We have Whispers from Pinterest

And sad purple quotes

Lining our camera roll

Which should highlight our happy moments

But is just videos of us crying

It has ruined relationships,

How dare we follow another guy,

How dare he like another girl's photo?

We have our music right there

We don’t have to learn lyrics,

We can play any instrument,

We must like Taylor Swift,

We must have Kanye West

Everything is a trend

And your clothes must match your aesthetic

And you have to be funny

Or smart

Or creative

And how dare we burn out?

How dare we burn out

When if we didn’t rot in our beds

Scrolling aimlessly

Would solve half our problems?

There is no fix now,

We have to watch them grow up

Knowing they’ll ask what this-big-word is

Before they’re even five

Because an ad came up on mummy’s phone

And “what’s a vape?”

And “am I fat?”

All we can do now

Is listen to our sad songs

And act like social media

Didn’t ruin our perceptions

On everything.

[kateubanks]

walking the dogs at five a.m. cinnamon ignites the air from my mouthmouthmouth.

the white, fluffy bastard makes a run for it, towards kids waiting for the county bus route (the schoolhouse is an hour away).

my arm lunges straight from its socket, and i nearly become another distended, clicking, full-of-dog-shit, October pile of mud.

[lindsaycs]

Cause when you're fifteen days away from #TSTTPD      

And somebody tells you it's going to be q masterpiece

You're gonna believe them because it will be an amazing album 🤍#THETORTUEDPOETSDEPARTMENT

@taylornation @taylorswift

[inmylavenderhaze]

“Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now…from sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes” is HEART WRENCHING

[coulsons-band]

taylor pls i'm trying to go to SLEEP

[ghostsofmemories]

from bigger dreams of mine

[orangestripesblog]

[chevril-glove]

how dare you think it's romantic leaving me safe and stranded (on alpha centauri in s1) (in heaven in s2e6)

[kittypawsome]

take a deep as you walk through the doors….

15 days till The Tortured Poets Department!! I CANT WAIT

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"Pretend there was no love so sweet that you would have died for it, pretend that it does not belong to someone else now, pretend like your heart depends on it because it does."

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

[thisismynamenowxpoetry]

Nothing’s impossible

But everything I want

Seems very

Very

Unlikely.