This was written and performed as slam poetry by my son for his grade 12 English class. I thought it was pretty insightful and ultimately a positive message. 

By Sam Kearney

We start off in life with the world at our fingertips,
with the words: “You can do anything” coming out of our parents very lips
And for years these words of motivation stick with you
fueling dreams of being celebrities, astronauts and rock stars too
The World seemed so big, so vast so full of adventure
Those in dentures would give us such a lecture
And so we believe with all our hearts and happy thoughts
That life is a happy place where only in movies are battles fought

But then comes adolescence, and with it comes the many doubts
For many once seemingly perfect family lives become full of arguments and shouts
You see atrocities every day on the television
at first these stories hurt you, on your heart they make an incision
But with this reality creates an invisible division
Your idea of the world has toppled like a house of cards
And with this destruction of an old understanding
sprouts a negative ideology against which we should guard

With this newfound negativity  come new thoughts and mindsets
we make bets with ourselves, putting money against us
We kill that old saying “You can do anything”
Thinking “I could never do this, i’m not good enough, i’m not good at anything”
When really these are just excuses to take the easy path
I mean if we’ve already given up then why put in the effort and try
It’s on that cheesy poster it’s simple math
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” It’s true, in life you either take a shot, or sit and wait to die.

It’s what many of us do, we’re all addicted to it, an entire nation
strangled by what we joke about – procrastination
We need to release from the shackles, locked up by ourselves
Take OUR selves off of the shelves
Stop skimming on the top of the waters of life and delve
deep into the depths of it and discover our full potential
Unleash our inner thoughts and dreams and stop keeping them confidential.