You Cannot Define Me

• Erika D'Arenzo, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2021

Yes, I might be a teenager,
Yes I might be different to you
But that doesn’t define who I am.
You are ignorant ones,
you are blind in what you think makes me
In what defines me.
Phones, social media, TikTok, you all call them addictions that spoil our minds and fill them with distorted ideas but these views are all fiction because see you are the ones who are oblivious to our true selves.
You see, we have minds filled with wonder and views that truly outweigh yours. We are not blind to the problems in our world even though you say we are too engulfed in ourselves to care about others.
No, No, No
These things are not true because we want to be equal to you, not better. We look to you for answers but you just slam us back into the ground back down to your feet where you think we belong. But don’t you see, we are all like a puzzle. Interlocking, Interconnecting, Intermeshing but if one piece is missing then it is not complete. Because we are all equal and play a part in this world for the good and the bad we still need to treat each other with respect.
But you don’t do that because you become too scared, too scared about what we will become if we start looking for answers. You try to control us but what you don’t understand is that we are too strong for you. Our minds have evolved, transformed, into a concept you don’t understand. And for this, you push us down in the hope that we will lose this wonder and turn into people like you, with minds that plough on but don’t pay attention to the little things that matter.
But we won’t give in, we will never give in to your assumptions, words, actions as you try to define us instead of listening with your ears to the words we are trying to speak. But no matter what you do we will stand strong, yes we will stand proud and face what is rightfully ours. And that is our identity, our identity about who we are and who we are meant to be. and we will never willingly hand it into your destructive hands for we know the devastation you are capable of. For we are teenagers and we will never, ever let you define us.