Our Children Now Feel Hopeless Poem by James McLain

I wake up already tired,
eyes heavy from screens and sleepless nights,
stomachs empty, wallets thinner than dreams,
parents fighting over bills, over nothing,
over everything.

at school, the hallways are battlefields,
words sharper than fists,
hands that shove, mouths that sneer,
judgment like a plague
spreading from locker to locker.

I scroll through images of perfection,
faces carved by filters, bodies built in mirrors,
wondering why I don't look that way,
why I don't feel that way,
why I don't fit at all.

I pull at my skin,
I whisper my names in secret,
I wonder if I should even be here—
this world that tells me
I am too much, or not enough,
so I start cutting.

I was born into a losing hand,
and nobody told me
that I could still bluff my way to something good.