This poem is not meant for young people

This poem is not meant for young people

It’s a poem about dreams and aspirations

Of course young people must dream big and aspire

To change the world and make it better

To fly, and as many a school motto does imply,

To aim high!

But this poem is not for young people

We’ve been fed the line: 

You can do anything you want to! You can be whoever you want to be!

But that’s not reality

There comes a point that, for one reason or another

Our long-cherished aspirations are

Simply not within our grasp.

Here’s the hard cold fact:

Life is not a level playing field

We’re not all the same

And it has nothing to do with how hard we work

Whether it’s intellect, looks, physical strength or money in the bank

Some people have more than their fair share while others miss out.

This poem is not a lament

Just because our lives don’t turn out 

as perfect as we might’ve once envisaged

Doesn’t, or shouldn’t mean that all’s lost.

It’s all about what we do with the cards that have been dealt to us

We all admire the people who rise up 

above difficulties in life and achieve a lot. 

You might not have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth

But have you made the best of what you’ve got?

 

Sylvain et Lola

 

They couldn’t be more different:

Sylvain in his sixties and Lola, her twenties

 

But each has known trauma.

 

The older trauma was the younger’s.

Just a child of ten,

Not sure what was happening when

Lola watched his mother go through a “violent depression”.

Could he lose her? – What would happen then?

 

His mum did come through that traumatic time for her, and for him.

 

Sylvain – the violence came much more literally and suddenly

And more recently (sadly homophobia is not dead).

 

Out of nowhere, he was set upon by thugs who threw him to the ground,

Hurled homophobic slurs at him while they kicked and hit his dancer legs with iron bars.

Not young, Sylvain feared for his life.

 

As the two shared their hardest times,

you could tell that the telling was to some degree a reliving

of those awful moments – and tears were not far away.

 

Yet the telling and the tears

both for themselves and for each other

were healing and strengthening.

 

As the two shared their hardest times,

Lola and Sylvain found a solidarity

And they agreed that tough as those experiences were,

They both emerged stronger.

 

Context

Watching Drag Race France – Season three – the sixth episode was a make-over challenge where the contesting queens were assigned an older LGBT person to makeover into a drag character to walk the runway with them. Lola Strega (drag name) was assigned to make-over Sylvain. The poem is about the conversation the two had while Lola did Sylvain’s make-up.