with closed eyes we see the world
blanketed by senseless screens
absent of real words
imagery we can’t understand
with closed eyes the world sees us
hidden behind doors
lost from human contact
connections we can’t define
with closed eyes we see the world
painted with desire
immersed in ourselves
love we cannot celebrate
Dr. Mr. Orwell,
You were right.
Big Brother hovers,
an omnipotent cloud
sneaking into every crevasse
of the glaciers
he’s placed in front of
our harrowed steps
up the mountain
none of us knew we’d climb.
Without a word
escaping our lips,
he knows our thoughts
and places his restrictions,
garishly flashing sound-bitten ads
on the pages
we once were able
to read in silence.
Just like Winston,
we seek shelter
among proletariats
who suck at our teets
with wanton thirst
for all that he will not allow
us to provide for them.
Big Brother has ensured
no shelter,
for it would detract
from the icy hike
he has put in place of
the rolling surreal hills
of the life
he won’t allow us to imagine.
I ask now,
as you toss in your tormented grave,
how so closely you could examine
the future,
how so bitterly you could speak
of the unwanted brutality of truth,
how so easily you could predict
the world we would rather depart
than be a part of.
Are we all (as my mother says)
self-absorbed Americans
bragging about our travels,
our milestones, our children,
our every little stupid success
in an age when technology
brings us together
and tears us apart?
What is the purpose
of these tools I use to write
these words, of
sending a message out
to potentially thousands,
but really only a few,
readers of my news?
And while I’m asking,
when will this bring,
instead of frustration
and anxiety, a sense
of belonging, of relief,
as I have begged for it to?
i should be you for Halloween
because you make me question myself
hiding them
hiding me
being me
removing them
them removing me
enough already.
let me be who i am
and if they can’t handle it
if I can’t handle it
then we’ll call it a truce
and fuck this Facebook shit.
OK?
Can I write a long essay
instead of creating a PowerPoint?
should I hear words such as this
when writing, writing, writing is my life
and that is all he’s asking to do
and all that I’m denying him?
Yes I should, because I am building
twenty-first century learners
who know how to create action buttons
and add in Googled graphics
transitions that pop and sparkle,
and change the colors of their fonts.
Yes, these are the important skills
that will carry them into English 101
where they will sit amongst 600 others
and struggle to understand thesis,
paragraphs, critical thinking that I,
with this PowerPoint, have denied him.
in windowless hell i sit
surrounded by computers.
technology seethes into my veins,
hard plastic pounds my ass.
keyboards and mice click
like the rodents they ought to be.
sighs and questions filter into
the stuffy dark room.
i am here but i am not here.
my mind, just like theirs,
wanders down the hallway,
out the door, into the open air.
i can picture the pedals,
the tires taking me home,
the summer heat seeping through me
like blood through my veins.
i can feel the bath-warm water
lapping around our naked skin,
his hands on my back in the soft
moments of a Kentucky summer.
in windowless hell i sit
surrounded by computers.
technology seethes into my veins,
gives me the keys to take me home.
you think you can (______)
with your fancy keys
and techno dreams
but you can’t
you may be the way
but you’ll never be
the face i need
to get me through the day
you think you can (_______)
with your high speed
and techno dreams
but you can’t
you may be the way
of the future, but you’ll
never be the love i need
to get me through the day.
after the backyard pool
and sprinkler,
the iPod, iPad, and DVD,
all I ask is that you sit
and listen to a story
for six minutes.
but my competition is too
fierce for us,
and the dropping sun,
the humid air,
and my readiness for your
bed time
lead to exhausted screams
from all of us.
tomorrow we will try again
when all the electronics
and water contraptions
are tucked out of your mind,
when we have a quiet moment
to pretend that they don’t exist,
that books could draw us
together with their magical
world of words,
when we can be
mother and daughters,
not slaves to the technology
that brings these lines to you,
that simultaneously
tears us apart.
Just like when I was a child, they’re obsessed
with examining pictures of themselves
and
there are only a few minuscule differences
between what they see and what I saw
I used to creep into the hall closet
and lug our wood- and cardboard-bound
construction-paper-filled albums
down from the shelf,
curl on the couch, knees crossed,
opening the pages so many times
that the punched holes holding them in place
began to tear by age nine,
the photo stickers began to peel off by eleven,
and as a teenager, the books
were almost too fragile to touch.
Now, in fifteen seconds,
I open up the laptop, command-click
five albums and then the black triangle,
choose a playlist that they all enjoy,
and watch as they, mesmerized,
view a three-seconds-per-pic slideshow
with dissolve, bubble, and fade—in effects
that I never could have imagined
when I was their age.
Just like when I was a child, they’re obsessed
with examining pictures of themselves
and
I think how much children are still the same
while the world around us is so strikingly different.
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