Youth Blast: between 2 languages

Over the last 2 days, youth from around the world have been collaborating across language barriers they never thought they would cross. There have been there challenges of course. I for one have fumbled my way in and out of conversations in Portuguese, Spanish and English, and usually a combination of all three. But there has been a strange sense of unity in the air.

While our leaders have failed to collaborate in Bonn, and throughout the the lead up to Rio+20, here at the Conference of Youth, or what we have called ‘Youth Blast’, we’ve been leading by example.

So I decided to write a poem and collaborate with some of my new friends to show you all just how well we’ve all gotten along. I hope you enjoy it.

Youth Blast: Between 2 languages

Fumbling through two languages, like a sandwich stacked too high and dripping sauce out the side,

My Portuguese makes brain damage look good.

As I see eyes roll back in the sight of those lost in translations of broken Spanish

And English;

fused in a smoothie

that only sometimes

tastes like Portuguese,

but in the young people I meet

we sip drinks with many straws

and slurp up every drip.

 

 

But Brushing past Backpacks and shoulder bags

Full to the brim

with

Laptops and camera phones,

Connecting limbs and fingers

with the world they dream of rearranging

to suit the future they want,

 

I wouldn’t change a thing.

 

For between two worlds,

mixing through grammar rules

and getting stuck playing tetris

with each other’s words

as vowels fall into holes left by accents

and consonants cut through towers that pile up in time

we make the future we want in every conversation.

 

Call us the play station generation

but we play games across cultures

and scavenge our smiles

like vultures

that strip the bones left behind

by those whose tried

but failed to find the marrow

hidden

inside.

 

We fight against false pretences

As sentences bump and grind, in and out and into pot-holes

That pop-up every

Now and then

As we trade tales and time

with new friends

who then become

the future we want to defend against.

 

A cause that comes and goes

But lays blows that bruise for years

And sometimes cuts into scar tissues

We use and use again,

Because the future we want is made to last.

And so, as we forge ties that stick

Like embarrassing facebook pics

And tumble through thinly translated phrases

and name tags we sometimes can’t remember.

 

We’ll return to these days,

And pay homeage to the friends we made

Along the way

 

So here’s to the youth

And the future we always knew we wanted,

But had to build ourselves

In-between too many languages

To make it easy,

But too few to keep us apart