Kids Like Us

By Clinton Sammy Jr.

Poet, Clinton Poems

Kids like us,

we were not meant to wear 

suits and ties,

or glass slippers and iced dresses.

We weren’t meant for fancy dinners 

or boxed cinemas, or prom nights 

where you’d kiss under the disco ball 

at midnight. 

See, kids like us,

we wear oversized, stained t-shirts 

with cigarette burns on them. 

There are bullet holes 

in our pants that everyone looks through. 

We don’t believe in love,

but we believe it will come.

We are meant for asteroids,

for fire rocks and dirty sand.

We were meant for war, to be as humans 

but apart from them, we sit in a distanced gaze 

and look on as the traffic lights blink.

We sing, dance, paint, write, create, sculpt,

but most importantly, we destroy.

We don’t go on picnics where the bread 

is particularly a certain way, or the orange juice 

is sweeter than the orange sun.

We hide in old abandoned mansions,

with dimmed chandeliers and drunk pianos.

We don’t travel the world, we hold the world by its neck 

and it travels us, we are, we are to be.

We are the kids 

who were never really kids,

but will always be kids.

—Clinton Sammy Jr