Millennials

Verse 1

I’m raising my children with bedtime stories,

While helping my parents retell their glories.

Between diapers and pills, the hours collapse,

Love is a full-time job with no naps.

Verse 2

I scroll through the headlines at midnight again,

Another war started, another storm bends.

I whisper to shadows, “Will this ever break”

The planet is crying, how much can it take

[Pre-Chorus]

How do you breathe when the air feels borrowed

How do you hope when tomorrow feels hollow

[Chorus]

We’re carrying the weight of a world gone astray,

Parents behind us, kids leading the way.

Burnout’s a fire that we cannot contain,

But love is the anchor that whispers our name.

Can you feel us breaking, OR ARE WE UNSEEN

Verse 3

My rent climbs a ladder I can’t seem to catch,

The hinges are rusting right off of the latch.

Boomers had pensions, a white picket lawn,

We get side hustles that vanish by dawn.

Verse 4

We’re stitched in the middle, a fraying seam,

Supporting two worlds with no in-between.

The sandwich is heavy, the bread’s turning stale,

But still we keep walking, we still must prevail.

Verse 5

The mask of resilience hides all our doubt,

A laugh in the breakroom that quietly shouts.

We clock in our worries, we file our fears,

And hide them in inboxes no one will clear.

[Pre-Chorus]

Is this the life we were promised as kids

Or a house of cards that forever skids

[Chorus]

We’re carrying the weight of a world gone astray,

Parents behind us, kids leading the way.

Burnout’s a fire that we cannot contain,

But love is the anchor that whispers our name.

Can you feel us breaking, OR ARE WE UNSEEN

Verse 6

The weather keeps screaming, the skies are on fire,

Politicians keep selling us broken choirs.

We patch up the leaks with our trembling hands,

While oceans keep swallowing cities and lands.

Verse 7

They tell us to trust in the system we see,

But the ladder was pulled long before you or me.

Cumbersome towers of paper and glass,

Built by the few to ensure they outlast.

Verse 8

The pandemic’s not over, it lingers like smoke,

A cough in the crowd turns to silence that chokes.

We lost all our anchors, we lost all our time,

And now we’re just swimming in grief’s undertow rhyme.

[Pre-Chorus]

How do we rise when the ground keeps shaking

Who holds us up when the world is breaking

[Chorus]

We’re carrying the weight of a world gone astray,

Parents behind us, kids leading the way.

Burnout’s a fire that we cannot contain,

But love is the anchor that whispers our name.

Can you feel us breaking, OR ARE WE UNSEEN

[Bridge]

We bend but don’t break, though the weight is unfair,

We’re proof that survival’s the shape of our care.

We’re shattered and scattered but stitched into one,

The story’s not over, it’s only begun.

Verse 9

Still I read my kid stories of dragons who fall,

And remind my old father that love beats it all.

I’m the hinge on the door that refuses to break,

The keeper of balance for everyone’s sake.

Verse 10

Some nights I collapse on the kitchen floor,

Wondering how much a heart can store.

The bills pile high, the hours run thin,

And I ask myself, “Where do I begin”

[Pre-Chorus]

Will the weight ever lighten, will the system bend

Or are we running in circles with no way to end

[Chorus]

We’re carrying the weight of a world gone astray,

Parents behind us, kids leading the way.

Burnout’s a fire that we cannot contain,

But love is the anchor that whispers our name.

Can you feel us breaking, OR ARE WE UNSEEN

Verse 11

Yet beneath the exhaustion, a pulse still remains,

A stubborn refusal to bow to the chains.

We might be the lost, but we’re also the found,

We’re the ones still planting in poisoned ground.

Verse 12

So here’s to the middle, the breaking, the bend,

The story we carry, beginning to end.

We’re holding the future though battered and scarred,

Because even in ruins, we still leave our mark.

[Pre-Chorus]

Is this collapse or a chance to rebuild

A broken horizon or soil to be tilled

[Chorus]

We’re carrying the weight of a world gone astray,

Parents behind us, kids leading the way.

Burnout’s a fire that we cannot contain,

But love is the anchor that whispers our name.

Can you feel us breaking, OR ARE WE UNSEEN

[Outro]

So raise up your hands, though the burden is sore,

We’re tired but stronger than ever before.

The sandwich may crush, the crises may sting,

But hope is a quiet, unkillable thing.