Less, They Say

Foreword / Introduction

It has been a while since my last poem, which is mostly due to doing what most people my age do, playing video games. At the same time, that is exactly what led me to write this poem, as it put me in a position where I had to deal with adults looking down on me because of my age, something I have come across often enough to recognize.

I have always found that somewhat ironic, as I will not deny looking down on the great majority of adults myself, and why shouldn’t I? That reaction does not come from nowhere. It comes from experience, and from repeatedly seeing the same patterns in the way many adults behave.

The truth of the matter is that teens have many reasons to look down upon adults, especially when so many of them act in ways that make it difficult to respect them, despite expecting that respect in return.

After all, these are the very people who are supposed to show us how to do better, to set an example we can actually follow. Yet so often, they fail at something as basic as treating us with respect. Instead, they look down on us, and then expect to be looked up to in return, which makes it hard to take them seriously.

Poem: Less, They Say [free-verse anti-adultism protest]

They look at us like unfinished furniture,
like something with parts still missing,
like we are only practice for later,
not people now, not whole now,
just smaller bodies to arrange in rows,
and silence is meant to prove respect.

Most adults say it gently at first,
with that flat voice they use for dogs,
for broken things, for weather reports,
as if our thoughts arrive half-made,
as if a child can feel pain only lightly,
as if age itself is a kind of crown.

There is a kind of hatred in that,
even when it wears a tidy face.
Not always shouting, not always fists,
sometimes just the calm removal of worth,
the steady trimming down of a person
until only obedience is allowed to remain.

Be seen and not heard, they tell us,
and sometimes they do not even hide it.
Stand straight. Hands still. Speak properly.
Do not answer back. Do not question.
A good child is an obedient child.
A useful child is a quiet one.

I have heard older phrases hiding inside that,
phrases with ironed collars and hard faces,
the child must know his place,
order must be kept for the good of all,
the small citizen belongs to the collective,
private hurt is selfish, swallow it.

That old thinking did not die cleanly.
It stayed in kitchens and stairwells,
in the grip on a shoulder,
in the look that says you are property,
in the sentence, you have no reason to cry,
in the idea that power means being right.

You can hear East German dust in it,
hear Soviet rust in the hinges,
discipline and order above feeling,
duty before truth, silence before doubt,
the image of the proper child polished bright,
while the real child stands behind it, erased.

Some adults love discipline more than truth.
They would rather a child lie politely
than tell the ugly thing out loud.
They call this manners, building character,
but often it is just fear in a neat coat,
fear that somebody smaller can still see clearly.

We are called immature by people
who throw plates of words at each other,
who sulk for days over tiny wounds,
who need someone weaker in the room
so they can feel tall without earning it,
so they can point down and name that strength.

They say we know nothing of the hard life,
yet we learn adults by watching them.
We learn who lies with a calm face.
We learn who says sorry only for show.
We learn who needs control like a habit.
We learn who breaks trust and calls it care.

A child notices everything people miss:
the pause before anger enters,
the cupboard door shut too sharply,
the smile with no kindness inside it,
and some of us stay silent and see more,
because silence hears what pride tries to hide.

They think being older means being better.
That is the oldest cracked sentence I know.
I have seen grown people mock weakness,
laugh at tears, worship money, dodge blame,
and then tell children to become decent
as if decency were their invention.

Sometimes adults speak like old regimes.
Not with flags or marching, maybe,
but with the same stale bricks in the mouth:
obedience first, feeling later,
the group image matters more than truth,
and the young should be grateful for pressure.

They treat us like rough drafts of humans,
like our minds are temporary furniture,
like our grief is made of paper,
like our anger is only bad behaviour,
like our love does not count until later,
like later is a place that finally makes us real.

I reject that with my whole body.
A child is not raw material.
A teen is not a failed adult.
We are not waiting rooms for real life.
We are real while we are hurting.
We are real while we are becoming.

And honestly, becoming is not shameful.
It is cleaner than pretending to be finished.
Adults act complete and leak cruelty.
They act wise and repeat damage.
They act strong and panic at honesty.
They act above us and stoop lower.

Who starts most wars inside a house?
Who teaches shame before kindness?
Who turns love into rules and debts?
Who says calm down while making fear?
Not children, most of the time.
Not the ones still learning how to hold a heart.

We are told we are dramatic,
but our grief is usually precise.
We know exactly what hurt us.
We know the tone, the door, the word,
the laugh after the word, the second laugh,
the way a room can turn against one person.

We are told we are selfish,
yet children share strange beautiful things:
half a biscuit, a secret drawing,
the seat by the window, a careful silence,
forgiveness offered too early, too often,
love handed over without contracts.

Adults should be ashamed sometimes,
not of being human, but of looking down
at people who are often kinder than them,
braver in feeling, quicker to mend,
less in love with rank, less hungry for power,
less trained in stepping on the soft part.

So no, I will not agree to less.
Not less mind, not less soul, not less worth.
Your age does not place you above me.
Your height of years proves almost nothing.
If anything, it gives you more chances
to show how much smaller a grown person can be.

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