Repeat | Teen Ink

Repeat

August 10, 2014
By Slevy SILVER, California, California
Slevy SILVER, California, California
5 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Repeat
Keep your head down,
Don’t think.
Walk forward,
Eat, sleep, blink.
Drink.
Repeat.
It’s like a dream in my sleep.
How long can I keep,
This going?
Just knowing,
That things are so bad,
Makes it hard to be glad,
For anything I had,
Because what do I have?
Nothing.
It may sound like I’m rushing,
To conclusions,
But I see through the illusion
Of this American Dream.
Does it seem
Like it’s real?
I feel,
Like it used to be.
I used to be able to see
A future for my country, for my family, for me,
But now, all that can be,
Is poverty.
I live in a house so small that if you blink, you’ll pass it.
That’s my reality. Can I last it?
Everyday I see people with the same sad face,
And I know that they are in my exact same place.
And I tell them,
Keep your head down,
Don’t think.
Walk forward,
Eat, sleep, blink.
Drink.
Repeat.
Here they come, I here the pounding of their feet,
My parents, home from another search for work.
It was unsuccessful, of course, I know by this feeling that lurks
In the back of my mind
That tells me I will find
Nothing here,
In this Hooverville.
But if that’s so,
Why am I standing here, standing still?
I will,
Make an improvement.
Maybe not start a movement,
Or a rebellion,
But I’ll tell them,
My family, my friends my country,
Things will get better, take it from me.
But then they’ll ask,
What happened to America the brave, to America the free?
I won’t have an answer, it’s too good of a question.
What happened to the lesson,
Of how we yearned,
And the fire inside us burned,
For our freedom?
And now, look what we’ve become.
It’s sad, it’s depressing.
But it’s the truth, although it can be repressing.
But for now,
All I can do is tell you how,
To survive.
Not thrive,
But to stay alive.
It goes like this:
Keep your head down,
Don’t think.
Walk forward,
Eat, sleep, blink.
Drink.
Repeat.


The author's comments:
A poem written from the perspective of a young girl living during the Great Depression.

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