I fear I have failed you,

       Or at least my generation has.

Our children don't seem to care,

        For the things you fought for.

I guess they don't understand what struggle is ,

or why it became one in the first place.

Maybe they are satisfied with what they have ,

or what they think they have.

I watch and feel ashamed,

at how they mock and snicker.

Throwing away what they take for granted,

because they don't understand.

Not realizing where we are headed,

I fear some knew it all along.

It is said that youth is on or side,

but is our side or theirs?

Education was supposed to open doors,

are they now the doors to failure?

The more we learn the higher we progress,

the higher we progress the less they try.

So why is the concept of freedom,

now become the notion to free the dumb.

I feel like they have stopped trying,

maybe they don't know what to strive for.

Give us a little and we are contempt,

why give us more than we can handle.

So they raise the stakes again and again,

keeping us right where they want us.

It wasn't supposed t happen this way,

or was it.

If the responsibility was ours,

did we drop the ball and how?

We try to teach,

and they will not learn.

We try to guide,

but they will not follow.

We try to talk to them,

and they decide to ignore.

We go to the polls,

and they choose not to vote.

You sat at the counter to eat,

they go through the drive thru.

You marched through the streets,

now we are scared to walk through them.

You protested to sit in the front of the bus,

now the back is the only place they sit.

You thought guns would protect us,

       now they kill each other with them.

You taught us about peace,

       they only know about war.

You taught us to love our brother,

       now they hate him because of a color.

Somewhere along the line they lost the ambition,

       to better themselves for their future.

I know this is not what you had in mind,

       so for that I say i'm sorry.