📝 The Veldt Poem- Barefaced Screen 📝

 

‘Change’ by RM feat. Wale

 

Barefaced Screen

There was a face.

One with freckles like stars in the night sky.

Wrinkles formed from laughter.

Eyes that screamed ambition- replaced with cries of recognition

A smile that was cherished now left to perish.

All unfollowed by unknown sources.

 

Befriended from a young age,

Where childhood memories began to fade.

Times were easier.

Happiness came with less of a price.

Running through grassy fields,

Begging to go back outside, after meals.

Playing pretend with friends.

Faces were deep into colourful books.

Not pressed against luminescent screens.

Children would be talking, not watching:

Things that taught someone how to feel;

How can we distinguish what is real?

It was once a safe house- yet you wanted to get out

Parents too busy for reassurance

Inching further away like broken islands

Instead of saying, “How’s school?”

We let the electronics rule.

 

Kindness became single mindedness

Supremacy over empathy

Contact is no more than a contract.

A solution, sacrificing sanity

Shaping sensibility into solitude.

 

With a click of a button

I can find out who am

Parts of me slammed onto a diagram

ENTJ? Or ISFP?

Is this really how it’s supposed to be?

Technology announcing our traits, weakness, and best pairs

Who we are; and what our favourite food can say about our love life.

What lies within our DNA?

How easy it is to put on display

On YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat

Creates pressure on the things we lack

From masculinity to femininity

We judge the pretty in this small committee

Swipe right

Swipe left

To see what stranger is waiting next

The way to connect is through the Internet

 

No longer can we see

Through the bright electric seas

Tabloids turned into television; transmitting a trace, that was tailored temporary.

Where money can now buy love

Or define happiness

With ‘chill’ streaming for $8.99 a month

Or coupons that can be used only once

 

Soon we will be the knowledge that we rely on

The glowing canvas we hesitantly turn off

With no emotion remaining

Like the batteries we are constantly draining

With glitches flashing green, magenta, red, and blue.

Sticking on us, to our adolescence,

Like glue

 

There once was a face

One with a smile that never dies

Wrinkles formed from worry

Eyes filled with constellations

But neglected by civilization

Society deeming barefaced to never be seen

Only to leave behind a Barefaced Screen