marty mcconnell, "give me one good reason to die"

at the millennial rolling-over point, baby boomer onetime-hippies-turned-parent all across these united states grown: when we said "you can be anything" we meant you could be a brain surgeon, or a genetic engineer, or a district attorney, we didn't mean you should become a poet

but it was dad who taught that the call of my wild heart rings as valid as any voice of reason, and it was mom who showed that raging terror of where you're headed is the surest sign that you're traveling in the right direction

this is a generation beyond definition: unconvinced the american dream isn't a fiction of REM sleep, unpersuaded the better life our parents sought and seek still beats on an unfamiliar highway

the spotlight's afterburn and half a pack of parliaments, breastfed on how many roads must a man walk down

we watched our creators sacrifice their sharp edges to stay within the lines, small wonder we accept this world as almost fatally flawed, filled the gas tank and raced to rant about the wrongs or find the edge of the planet and lean at the lip of the void

we are the change generation, fitted with the inconsistencies of a millennium in flux, vagabond lot, we skitter one city to the next in search of acceptable permanence, a home not in need of so much repair

see, our inherited tools, they fit like a phillips head in a slot screw: we know that sit-ins end in tear gas and tanks, picket lines in promises and compromises, lobbying in backrooms and bullshit

i might believe in this revolution if one person proved he knew what he was fighting for, and how

because the KKK still erects a cross in cincinnati's fountain square every christmas, and teenage girls still have to balance daddy's fists versus back alleys to secure abortions, and promisekeepers fill stadiums while poets play coffeehouses 

and if i fucked a woman in alabama, arizona, arkansas, florida, idaho, kansas, louisiana, massachusetts, michigan, missouri, north carolina, south carolina, texas, oklahoma, virginia, or utah, i could get anywhere from 30 days to 20 years in jail 

and i don't own enough rage for it all, i am 95 miles per hour on I-81 sprinting to trap the tirade vibrating on the next stage, is anybody listening? 

i live in search of a cause worth dying for. it could be this revolution is all mouth and no legs. because we are a generation of screamers, silenced by this conspiracy of comfort that cradles us voiceless in our PC cities where only the drunk and the dangerous spill what seethes in so many

i trade crusades like cards, flip issues like channels. give me a god. give me a rallying cry. give me one good reason to die.