Ode to being a Teenager
by Annabel Jansen, ELTHAM College
Finalist, Years 11 – 12, written poetry
I am grateful to my phone,
for glueing my eyes wide
each morning, yawning open
the dams to a sea
of my debilitating inadequacy
I am grateful to Instagram models
with eating disorders and Ozempic,
for flooding my feed with diets I know –
deep down
won’t make me look like them.
Their flat waists accentuate their
skinny arms and each hollow face.
while I feel my skin drape and weigh
onto my body like a soaking wet blanket.
I am grateful to the eternal fortification
of my mum’s Facebook posts.
To nostalgia embraced,
In the internet’s loving arms.
constructed memories
They are scrappily sewn
by a lead thread
and thrown in the ocean.
I am meant to be grateful
knowledge is hung over our heads,
Fluttering through our fingertips.
A new age of quixotic catastrophe.
Look around and be grateful.
A beautiful burden,
Full of futile podcasts and misinformation.
Here, everything is a debate.
Fall for clickbait,
Don’t bother to punctuate,
don’t pause to breathe,
don’t stop for clarity,
just type, just post,
barely escape.
I am grateful to my phone
I feel my grip on reality
slipping, out of my tired hand.
a beach full of debris
an algorithmic quicksand.
it’s a true addiction of its own
we are the generational drones
I am grateful,
really, I am,
to my phone.
Want to read more poems? Explore the other Years 11 – 12 finalists.