The Generation Between Poem by Natasa To

We are the generation

that learned to swipe before we learned to drive,

thumbs glowing blue in the midnight dark,

hearts buffering between online and alive.



We were raised by doorbells and notifications,

by playground dirt and pixel dust,

half our secrets whispered in bedrooms,

half entrusted to clouds of code and trust.



We watched the world through fractured lenses—

a thousand headlines every hour.

We grew fluent in irony and outrage,

in the fragile arithmetic of power.



Our childhood lived in photo albums,

our adolescence lives in feeds.

We measure time in trends and stories,

in viral hopes and urgent needs.



We are tired—but not of dreaming.

We are anxious—but aware.

We carry climate charts in our pockets

and still dye rebellion in our hair.



We fall in love through curated windows,

yet crave a hand that's warm and real.

We speak in memes and quiet glances,

in coded jokes and wounds we feel.



They say we're lost in endless scrolling,

that we mistake the screen for sky.

But we have built whole constellations

from hashtags that refuse to die.



We are the children of before and after,

of dial tones and satellites.

We remember maps that folded open,

and maps that guide us by unseen lights.



We inherit debts and melting summers,

promises bent but not yet broken.

Still, we plant our flags in shifting sand

and dare to make the future spoken.



We are not soft—we are unfolding.

Not distracted—overexposed.

We are a chorus learning harmony

in a world that hums in overload.



And when history turns to name us,

may it say we chose to care—

that in the noise, we kept on listening,

and found each other there.