Written as a series of toasts, the poem raises a glass to young people who were let down. Each "Here's to the kids" opens a new stanza and a new kind of damage: pressure to be perfect, a home filled with screaming and empty apologies, drugs and drinking that swallow the years, and hopes that were "crushed like innocent daisies." Each stanza ends on a single blunt word, such as "Crack," "Empty," "Gone," "Destruction" and "Shrivelled," like a door shutting.
The speaker sounds tired, angry and grieving all at once. The shift to "we" in "all we needed was love" suggests they count themselves among these kids. In the last lines the toast widens to everyone, "human kind," and the closing question, "What happened?", echoes the subtitle. The mood is bleak and raw, but the question also feels sincere, as if the speaker still wants an answer.