youth

Rather than standing or speaking for children, we need to stand with children speaking for themselves. We don't need a political movement for children... [we need to] build environments and policies for our collective future.

In my heart, I am American, and I believe I have a free will and can take charge of my own destiny.

I once had a mind of quicksand,That dragged ideas into its depths,Inhaling specks of sunlight,Every time I drew a breath,But the world thought me a hazard,When every word I spoke, I meant,So around me they put caution tape,And filled me with cement.

We grew up on the same street,You and me.We went to the same schools,Rode the same bus,Had the same friends,And even shared spaghettiWith each other's families.And though our roots belong toThe same tree,Our branches have grownIn different directions.Our tree,Now resembles a thousandOther treesIn a sea of a trillionOther treesWith parallel destiniesAnd similar dreams.You cannot envy the branchThat grows biggerFrom the same seed,And you cannotBlame it on the sun's direction.But you still compare us,As if we're still those twoKids at the parkSlurping down slushies andEating ice cream.Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010)

FORKED BRANCHESWe grew up on the same street,You and me.We went to the same schools,Rode the same bus,Had the same friends,And even shared spaghettiWith each other's families.And though our roots belong toThe same tree,Our branches have grownIn different directions.Our tree,Now resembles a thousandOther treesIn a sea of a trillionOther treesWith parallel destiniesAnd similar dreams.You cannot envy the branchThat grows biggerFrom the same seed,And you cannotBlame it on the sun's direction.But you still compare us,As if we're still those twoKids at the parkSlurping down slushies andEating ice cream. Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010)

Blest who was youthful in his youth;blest who matured at the right time;who gradually the chill of lifewith years was able to withstand;who never was addicted to strange dreams;who did not shun the fashionable rabble;who was at twenty fop or blade,and then at thirty, profitably married;who rid himself at fiftyof private and of other debts;who fame, money, and rankin due course calmly gained;about whom lifelong one kept saying:N. N. is an excellent man.But it is sad to think that to no purposeyouth was given us,that we betrayed it every hour,that it duped us;that our best wishes,that our fresh dreamings,in quick succession have decayedlike leaves in putrid autumn.It is unbearable to see before oneonly of dinners a long series,to look on life as on a rite,and in the wake of the decorous crowdto go, not sharing with iteither general views, or passions.

Blest who was youthful in his youth;blest who matured at the right time;who gradually the chill of lifewith years was able to withstand;who never was addicted to strange dreams;who did not shun the fahsinable rabble;who was at twenty fop or blade,and then at thirty, profitably married;who rid himself at fifty of private and of other debts;who fame, money, and rankin due course calmly gained;about whom lifelong one kept saying:N. N. is an excellent man.But it is sad to think that to no purposeyouth was given us,that we betrayed it every hour,that it duped us;that our best wishes,that our fresh dreamings,in quick succession have decayedlike leaves in putrid autumn.It is unbearable to see before oneonly of dinners a long series,to look on life as on a rite,and in the wake of the decorous crowdto go, not sharing with iteither general views, or passions.

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.

... the old Berlin _ last vestige of a mysterious fête _ wheeled away from the gravelled road and went lurching noiselessly across country over a grass-grown track. Beyond the hedge nothing could be seen of it but the driver's cap bobbing up and down.

I remember when I was twenty-five,_ he said. __o client comes to you when you__e twenty-five. It__ like when you are looking for a doctor. You don__ want the new one that just graduated. You don__ want the very old one, the one shaking, the one twenty years past his prime. You want the seasoned one who has done it so many times he can do it in his sleep though. Same thing with attorneys.

We ate the birds. We ate them. We wanted their songs to flow up through our throats and burst out of our mouths, and so we ate them. We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh. We wanted their wings, we wanted to fly as they did, soar freely among the treetops and the clouds, and so we ate them. We speared them, we clubbed them, we tangled their feet in glue, we netted them, we spitted them, we threw them onto hot coals, and all for love, because we loved them. We wanted to be one with them. We wanted to hatch out of clean, smooth, beautiful eggs, as they did, back when we were young and agile and innocent of cause and effect, we did not want the mess of being born, and so we crammed the birds into our gullets, feathers and all, but it was no use, we couldn__ sing, not effortlessly as they do, we can__ fly, not without smoke and metal, and as for the eggs we don__ stand a chance. We__e mired in gravity, we__e earthbound. We__e ankle-deep in blood, and all because we ate the birds, we ate them a long time ago, when we still had the power to say no.

Resting on the roots of this old oak I lean back against his knotted trunk, shine my granny smith on my sleeve And ponder the days_

I'd sit around dreaming that the boys I saw at shows or at work - the boys with silver earrings and big boots - would tell me I was beautiful, take me home and feed me Thai food or omelets and undress me and make love to me all night with the palm trees whispering windsongs about a tortured gleaming city and the moonlight like flame melting our candle bodies.

_what splendid dreams young people build upon a word, and how bitter is the pain when the bright bubbles burst.

At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.

When you're young, you think everything you do is disposable. You move from now to now, crumpling time up in your hands, tossing it away. You're your own speeding car. You think you can get rid of things, and people too__eave them behind. You don't yet know about the habit they have, of coming back.Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been.

we developed a firm, practical feeling of solidarity, which grew, on the battlefield, into the best thing that the war produced - comradeship in arms.

Oh you, my generation!- we were a lovely lot! Sharp minds- arguing all the time and brittle bodies and even more brittle laughter- and all the time knowing that we were growing up to die.