A Currency We Haven’t Learned to Spend
A Currency We Haven’t Learned to Spend
I wake up in a world that’s always moving,
a second away from breaking.
I scroll through the noise,
and I wonder what happens when the screen goes dark.
I’m told we’re the ones who will fix this,
but no one taught us how to stitch together a world
that feels more fragile with every passing hour.
They tell us we’re the change,
but what does it mean to change a world
when change itself has become a currency?
A currency they say we’re too young to understand,
too young to grasp the weight of what’s slipping away,
but it’s still
our
responsibility.
Ask me what keeps me up at night,
and I’ll say it’s the same thing
that wakes me up in the morning —
a thousand small battles,
waged between who I am
and who I’m expected to be,
the constant fight for space,
and the fear that my rights
are the next to slip away.
I don’t hope for everything to be perfect,
just for something to make sense.
For the noise to die down long enough
for someone to hear us,
before the fire consumes us all.
I’m a teenager in 2025,
but I am not a statistic.
I’m not a headline,
or a problem to solve.
The world’s weight presses on my chest,
but I will keep learning how to breathe
under the weight of a future
that doesn’t seem to want me to exist.
The Voice
March 2025
Special Issue: Teenager Contest
What does it mean to be a teenager in America in 2025? YWP writers and artists open a window onto their world in this special issue of The Voice. The honest and thoughtful reflections shared here, in ...
Confession
When I think about tomorrow, I see the calculus test I have not studied for and the five overdue assignments with long-received fat zeroes. I see the boy I think I love still leaving my messages on de...
Silent Thoughts
To be chosen. That's all I wish for — to be someone's first choice. I watch from afar, lost in a sea of the bittersweet feeling As others are always chosen first, but never me, And I wonder why I can...
A Currency We Haven’t Learned to Spend
I wake up in a world that’s always moving, a second away from breaking. I scroll through the noise, and I wonder what happens when the screen goes dark. I’m told we’re the ones who will fix this, but ...
Generation Undecided
Maybe we're the ones who grew up on our iPads then our phones, the ones who teach our teachers how to use their screens, the ones who know each other's lives through filters and think we know each ot...
Teenage Delirium (The Dictionary)
B – Bones (noun pl.)/bōn/birch trees bending and breaking in the wind | forests of tangled trunks, cracking and snapping, littering the ground | roots (like fingers); reaching and grasping and clenchi...
A Letter to the Grownups
It's not all the grownups, But it's too many. Nothing is how it should be. The world is heating. The government collapsing. Yet we, We are only overreacting. Nothing is the same as it was. We aren't...
Before
I miss the days When we would run through the fields And swim in the pond all day Smiling and using kayaks I miss the nights When we would read books and laugh about the smallest things I want to go ...
Drowning, Dreaming, Demanding
It feels like drowning in expectations while trying to convince the world I can swim. I’m always performing. The pressure is suffocating. Everyone tells me to enjoy my youth, but how? Every decision...
Girlhood (A List)
Girlhood is texting your crush because it's late at night and you don't know any better. Girlhood is staring way too hard at the prettiest girl in class. Girlhood is planning revenge on boys who broke...
Alone
[Alone in] Laughter, lamenting the lost light,you don’t want to be the forgotten, the lost cause, the missed flight. Reason runs thin when your sadness is bountiful,ink runs red as you write,over and...
Too Much, Too Soon
They call us the lost generation, but how can we be lost when we see everything? We inherited the ruins, the sins of the past like notifications, the echoes of greed carved into policy, while they ask...
Adolescence
Being a kid is like a dream. You’re riding bikes and going on hikes in the park. Nothing is holding you down ‘cept when the day frowns with rainy skies and you can’t stay out after dark. And then bei...
Parenting Lessons
always carry your keys between your middle and ring finger never have your wallet visible don't listen to music in public everyone's a stranger you're our child; don't scare us. study until you can't ...
After All of This
It's only February and look at this world. I want to know if we'll get through all of this. And on the other side, will I still be standing, or will I keep falling like I am now, and I'll fail my ...