Mediocrity, mediocrity—
I can ALMOST taste the irony—
of your ALMOST-rhyme with debauchery.
For debauchery, debauchery,
is what takes you and makes you an illness.
For mediocrity, mediocrity,
you are the kid in the third row
of that generic classroom
in that generic public school
who smokes generic weed
with his generic pot-head friends.
Don’t hide behind the cacophony
of A’s, B’s, C’s, and D’s on his report cards!
I can still see you!
In fact, it’s almost as if his grades consist
of M’s, E’s, D’s, I’s, and O’s.
C’s, R’s, I’s, and T’s.
Oh, and don’t forget the Y’s,
yea, I can see you mediocrity.
You’re right there, behind the eyes,
of all the kids in the halls with their oh-so-slight slouches
that pit them between hunchbacks
and poise-and-posture-preoccupied-princesses.
But that’s a lot of P’s for the pot-heads,
who usually see F’s, not P’s, when it comes to pass/fail.
Indeed, indeed, you not only smell of weed,
but of failure of a different breed.
You’re found in cubicles—
yes, carpet covered cubes—
with masses of yes-men who dwell in the ‘burbs.
Your disease, your disease,
has brought the rising generation to its knees.
It kneels—it bows!—before its video games and innumerable shames.
And one of its shames is you mediocrity!
Mediocrity, you brought the lackadaisies—
not of the same beauty as true daisies—
and made the world lackadaisical.
You accompanied the dull-drums, the ho-hums,
and less-than-stellar sums.
You’re average, you’re average.
How does it feel to be average?
A lack of drive, a lack of ambition—
this is what composes your infection.
Indeed, it matches your listless complexion.
Your blank eyes, your tranquil smile,
you’re the one who I beguile.
You mediocrity, your plague, will kill the world.
What is the world to do, what is the world to do,
when the majority of its population is oppressed by you?
I’ll tell you mediocrity, I’ll tell you what the world can do
to cure the infection that you created then spread.
The world can give up living from day to day,
simply trying to survive;
the world can look up to the sky and be glad it’s alive!
It can recognize your horrid face,
your putrid scent,
the people of the world can take that leap of faith,
take a chance, choose to truly live, reach their full potentials,
and take a firm stance against you mediocrity.
For we, as human-beings, we are not mediocre,
you refuse to believe so, and so you simply must go.
Now longer will we remain oppressed,
no longer shall we allow our imaginations,
our minds to sit in your dismal dungeons,
we will break free.
This, mediocrity, I can guarantee,
for as Martin Luther King Jr. said,
“The oppressed will not remain oppressed forever.”