"Adolescent Nothing" by Daniel Rivera

iPod blasts a song
that you’re not even sure you like;
blue gradient of the volume bar
overflows, flickers a
Tiny White Pixel
as if to say, too high

Vocal chords strain against
the weight of your singing
run your fingers over the sinews
and the veins and the bulging
of a throat in distress
you sing louder but you cannot hear
your own voice
so you wonder
if a sound is dependent on its
receptors should it
desire
to
exist.

There’s a book and it’s lauded
praised
and oh, everyone loves it.
And oh all these people
who know who they are,
well, they bond
over this love.
So you reject it.
You do not
bond
cannot.
So you hate.

Use your wit and the spear
of your tongue
and all the pretty barbs you’ve
wrapped around it
and lash
lash
because that’s all you can
do, is be a spectacle
an approximation
of an opinion.
Be the anti,
stand. You still
cannot
bond.
Barbs sharpened, you tell
the world it’s a
choice
.

The bond forms, closes, fuses, melts.
Memories and pictures
and bad taste and retrospection
gives birth to nostalgia and oh,
remember when… and you
talk about it in public and
so cultured
you see how far you’ve grown.
There’s the outlier
who never liked the book
never bonded
read Salinger to be an ~individual
when
all
the
other
alternatives
ready Chbosky.

feign individuality to compensate
for your distinct
lack of
self-
awareness.
it’s alright, this is
adolescence
no one will call you out
and everyone
pretends
to be jaded.

preen in your self-reverential
sardonic nature.
act like your lack
of a sense
of humor
is really just no one
understanding you.
If MTV followed you around
with a camera, your snide confessional
dialogue would be hilarious and engaging,
right?
You greet the world – you’re an unfound
gold mine, a spade away
from glittering discovery.
but no one wants to dig.
your nose is too upturned for you to
realize
they shouldn’t have to.

iPod blasting, you drag
the opacity to zero.
Nothing left but an empty layer
over nothingness.
Your life is photoshop and you’ve
just Free Transformed it
out of proportion.
you progress.
It’s all one struggle, singularly,
it’ll be grown out of.
There’s something else, but
hey,
don’t rush;
you have plenty of time.