We are Gen X
we never get old I mean
we get old but we never crack
like the rest
we’re Gen X
we look younger than millennials –
sorry millennials –
why don’t you plug in your car
and cry – it’ll be just a sec til
both your parents / still married
come help
we are Gen X
we loved the rockers on MTV so much
that we got with them
followed them
tried to be like them
married them
took them from their sad Reseda houses
and injected them with new energy
vitality
hope
we are Gen X
we breed false hope
we are Gen X
we have no money
but our dicks still work
We Gen X
they could smell it
on us -.all the earlier rockers
smelled it
wanted to get with us –
quote – the minute I saw you I knew I wanted to have a baby with you – end quote
we are Gen X
you see your unborn children in our eyes
we are Gen X
we common law married
old rockers
and trust funders and bartenders –
married your big hair
and your big dreams
and your big stories of Oregon
and the bend in the snake River –
we married you white boy
married you Ratt, Poison, Cinderella,
married you TJ Hooker
married you 2 Live Crew
you loved us
but you could never be us
just like the elders loved the Beats
but were destined for the GM factory floor –
you wanted us – Gen X –
man did you want us –
you saw Kurt Cobain magic on us
knew wet Seattle and Aberdeen
knew everything we know
but you’re not Gen X –
we are Gen X see –
you know we loved you
praised you
but you could never be us –
could never know the loneliness,
that particular turn-of-the-century loneliness,
that latchkey Kid show
that eye drop tear drop sugar drop –
we were raised by skittles
We are Gen X
and now we are alone
nodding to each other at the farmers market,
the grove, the americana,
(what is Los Angeles)
L.A. Cum Disneyland –
now all Los Angeles
is Disney covered –
we look
we nod
we make our hand thump
we do joint break
we drop low
we look 30 … ish
but we really
so much older.
epilogue
goodbye Tom Petty –
we hardly knew you –
goodbye to all your heart break too
goodbye Tom Petty
and all the guys who look like you
goodbye to you –
and all the boys
who look like you –
Linda Ravenswood is a Poet and Performance artist from Los Angeles. Her work holds memory, history, place and lineage as meaningful, and available markers. She was short listed for Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, 2017. Recent work has been commissioned for The Los Angeles Review of Books, Cornell University, The Broad Theatre, Royce Hall and The UCLA Centre for Performance, SMMOA, AWP Pen USA, The Google Corporation, The Hammer Museum, The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, The Los Angeles Arts Commission, The Angel’s Gate Cultural Centre, Highways, The Bootleg Theatre, and Casa del Tunel (Mexico). Published in literary journals, with music compositions appearing in documentary films (PBS), and anthologies (Sybaritic Press, Mouthfeel Press, Gallery 16 Press, Harriet Tubman Press, Inland Press, LACMA Press – forthcoming), Linda is a Finalist for Poet Laureate of West Hollywood (2016), Finalist for the Hilary Gravendyk Prize (2017 and 2018), and twice nominated for The Pushcart Prize for Poetry, (2009, 2012). Linda is also a lecturer, dramaturg and workshop presenter, most recently teaching at UCLA, Occidental College and The 24th Street Theatre. Linda Ravenswood is NDN / First Nation, (Pokanoket, Wampanoag) and a Mayflower descendant on her mother’s side, and an Indigenous / Mestizaje from Baja California Sur on her father’s side. She was raised in Los Angeles by Jewish Holocaust survivors from WWII.