Gen Z Stuff - Blog Posts

Flying a piano

An airport

A trip together, the very last one

The tickets are booked, the bags given up.

The gates are so full, we have to find new seats. The cafes are so full, the queue makes people nervous.

Flights delayed, flights on time. We don't acknowledge. No one acknowledges. There's no reason to invest energy, is there.

But there's a public piano.

And he plays.

Slowly, people acknowledge.

He plays.

There are fairy lights strung around a concrete pillar.

He plays.

I wink at the little girl sitting across from me. She smirks back. We eat our bread together.

He plays.

And it's "what a wonderful world".

I see skies of blue

The announcements are unnerving. He plays.

And clouds of white

Eyes soften

The bright blessed day

Smiles grow

The dark sacred night

A girl stops to grin at him, how good his playing is. He smiles.

And I think to myself

For a minute, we live

What a wonderful world.

For a minute,

We are human.

She asked me if I miss her while she's on sick leave from school.

What do you want me to answer? I wrote a poem about you on the train heading home from your place after we binge-watched Netflix together. I check Whatsapp way too often, heart chipped a little more everytime you didn't reply just to completly heal up once you do. I miss seeing you in my peripheral vision when I look at the board. I miss sitting beside you in silence during break while you draw, eating my sandwich. I miss looking up and seeing you infront of my desk. Free periods hurt, cause I've never eaten the entire orange alone. I've always shared quarters with you.

Yeah I miss you. We're in high school, and my love is appropriately rediculous.

But honey, I was born with the world crumbling around my mother's hospital bed

I grew up stepping around the shards with childish innocence

If you didn't want me to take up weapons,

you shouldn't have shattered the world with yours.

Do you know what I hate? What I'm really, really angry at?

We're not allowed to express love.

And it pisses me off.

Yes! That boy in my class looks stunning in that green sweater! I gaze in awe at the way my friend looks like an urban goddess at midnight drenched in street lights, surrounded by dancing teenagers at a party in the theatre parking lot! Another one looks like dawn and summer fields fell in love with her! I adore the way my classmate dresses like a punk fairy, with dirty blonde braids reaching to her hips and grazing her red leather jacket! The boy who lends me his eraser has the most fantastic sense of humour, the way he looks down for a second before he grins!

I love herb gardens! And perfume oils! Old books and fantasy novels! Dope-ass boots paired with a nice coat and conservative scarf clashing with my pink hair! I love poems! And jasmine tea!

I love how the old Vietnamese lady runs the best soup bar in town. How excited my seat neighbour gets over fancy notebooks. I love it when a fellow teenage girl hesitantly smiles back at me across the street.

Why is she hesitant? Because there's that ever-lasting question. Is this the socially designated response? Am I supposed to react differently? Am I supposed to react at all? Wouldn't it be "cooler" to ignore me?

Is it weird when I tell a boy I hardly know that he looks epic in that sweater? Is it over the top when I tell that girl in my French class how cute her boots are every time she wears them? Is waving at people I barely know but I get a happy vibe from bad?

Is it wasteful and expensive that I love perfume and essential oils? Is me wearing my mother's expensive coat with leather boots and purple hair childish? Is my idealism and wide-eyed hope to be laughed at?

We're not allowed to express love.

I had so much of it.