Baby Busters (repost)

Shots were fired in Dallas
four years before I was born
a Baby Buster,
middle child,
misfit,
neither x nor y,
too young for Studio 54,
too old for a mosh pit.

Raised on a steady diet of
television and Tang.
Vietnam was a series of
black & white images
while drawing with Crayolas.
Watergate was background noise
while eating TV dinners.

Lying on our bellies,
chins resting in our hands
we waited for Tinkerbell to let us in
to Disney’s wonderful world.

We are products of
the summer of love.
Our fathers were Diggers
our mothers wore flowers
in their hair.

We carried The Force
in our back pockets,
lived the Wonder Years
on a white Huffy with the banana seat-
nobody had a helmet,
everybody had a latchkey.

After school,
we watched the Brady Bunch
dreamed of Walton's Mountain
and grieved for the perfect family,
lost somewhere between Kent state
and Columbine.

We watched while Disco
drew its last breath
and gave birth to
the MTV Generation.

We witnessed the Berlin Wall
come crumbling down
like Jericho,
and watched the Gulf War
from a comfortable chair
with a bag of microwave pop corn.

We remember when
OJ Simpson was a hero,
Michael Jackson was cool,
and Madonna was hot.

We never wore saddle shoes
or poodle skirts,
nose rings or bellybutton things.
Individuality was the new conformity. 

We wish we could believe
that love is all you need
to change the world.

A graduate degree is
no longer our guarantee.
Over-educated and under-employed
Baby Boomers clog
the arteries of upward mobility.
Busters work two McJobs
and still can’t pay the rent.

We learned that despite superstition
and social panic,
a millennium ends seamlessly
where another begins.

The Me Generation vs. the
Why Me? Generation,
more likely to see a UFO
than a social security check.
Paralyzed by our inheritance:
racial strife, homelessness,
fractured families and federal deficits.
Caught between a thong
and Depends.