Teen Angst

In high school we had a monthly paper put together by students in the journalism class.  These papers would feature articles written by the journalism members about sports, dances, recent school events, etc.  Sometimes there would be a section showcasing student art such as photography, paintings, and poems.  About 90 percent of the poems were centered around such pleasant topics as suicide, loneliness, anger, and depression-all written about with extreme melodrama, of course.  All of these are perfectly legitimate topics to write poems about, but it pained me to read poems that sounded pretty much the same.  I can almost guarantee that most of those kid's lives were not that bad and they just wanted to write something that would appear dark and deep.  I am going to write two poems based upon the awful pattern of melodramatic teen angst that I read.  Revel in the horribleness.


I am alone and lost on an island amidst an ocean of despair
Waves of sadness crash upon my shore and take more away from me each day
Dark clouds sweep in to block out the rays of the sun
And fierce tempests threaten to rip me apart
I am drowning with no one to save me
So lost, so alone, so afraid


My heart is bleeding from neglect
I scream, scream, scream in the dark
I cry out, but no one hears
The anguish I feel has no end
The only release is pain, sweet pain
Dark redness against my skin
Please someone save me from myself


So that's the kind of thing I read.  Over and over and OVER again!  I don't believe that all of these kid's lives were really that bad.  Depressing diction and synonyms for sadness do not equate good poetry, especially if people are just trying to get attention from it.