It's a Hard Life

You see, it's a hard life we live

in this upper-middle class,

all white-sprinkled-with-a-few-

extra-colors-no-one-is-willing-to-identify

community.

It's a hard life in this school of 800,

where everyone knows everyone,

arduous introspective battles fought

between brand names, the number of

likes on that last Instagram post, 

And who is who's Snapchat best friend,

Dodging pools of Dunkin' iced coffee

Which crashed to the ground as if it was

the bomb on Hiroshima, ruining the day of

flat-ironed-burned hair, Vineyard Vines

quarter zips,

Left in the middle of hallways for janitors

to mop up, because they deserve it; they didn't

go to college, it's their job now, and those who drop

those translucent plastic cups, $4.00 every day,

will not  ever be those janitors, as they achieve grades

Of just passing only by using Google Translate

and GroupMe messages to cheat on their

homework assignments.

It's a hard life to keep up; suffering 

Fear of Missing out as they scroll through feeds 

of social media on a Saturday night,

buried in a screen containing their world

as slowly, it buries them.

Dependence is a funny thing. The ghost

vibration of a text message in your pocket,

anxiety clutching your heart as you may have

left your phone at home "Quick, call my mom,

this is a life or death situation", stomach

turning until your life is returned to you,

because without that phone, you are nothing.

It's hard life: a WiFi signal is cut--the world 

must be ending, an apocalyptic occurrence saved

by the 3G coverage provided by daddy 

paying an extra $50 a month for extra data usage

so you can share every moment of your day

With the world, bragging about what you have,

complaining about what you don't have,

Try to trust the fact that you are interesting enough.

Is what you do propelled by the thought "How

many likes will this get?", are birthday dinners

at a circular table  defined by Snapchatting each other,

conversations sparked only by a photo on

a screen, mocking another person,

are your ideas formed only by that one 

Twitter account you follow because "they have

one million followers, so they  must be 

legitimate"? because I promise you,

They are not. Can we not speak, can we

not share moments with those who are

there in them? Can we not keep them

between those who matter, or must we always impress?

Are we defined by how much time we spend

with others, or how much time we spend

telling about what we did with others

Because today, I am not sure. It's

a hard life.  And I'm not sure who is to

blame: our parents fearing not being in

constant communication with us,

teachers allowing you to use phones in school

because playing that game serves some educational

purpose, do they realize what they are fostering? 

It's a hard life, between running to Starbucks

and checking the "Gram Feed", how could

one possibly have time to think for 

themselves? Why waste time thinking

about an issue, when you can Google it,

or send a picture of the work you already

did to a friend? The answer seems obvious.

What we don't see in this all-white-

sprinkled-with-a-few-extra-colors-no-

one-is-willing-to-identify online community

is the kid who goes to the library after school

because he does not have WiFi at home. We don't

see the girl who posts numerous selfies

every day to get likes because she cannot 

see her worth without it being validated by the

approval of hundreds of people she does not

and will never know.

It's a hard life to disconnect from; to miss 

the latest debate on Twitter between a fighting

couple because you deleted that app, and were

forced to watch the latest debate between 

countries at war. When you finally understand

that "Hamas" is not just a fun way to say 

"hummus", and that the Ice Bucket Challenge

is trying to attract attention to a degenerative

motor-neuron disease. Ignorance is 

so much safer. The world is a scary place,

and you realize

It is not a hard life that you live. You realize

instead of liking pictures that NatGeo posts

of a forest, you can...hike in one? You can 

laugh at conversations and jokes people

tell you...face to face? You can enjoy

A moment with a single person and cherish

it without sharing it with 700 people? 

Revolutionary. Simply Revolutionary. 

It's a hard life facilitated by the number

of followers you get increasing exponentially,

dragging you into the screen, proportional

only to the amount of time that you waste

away looking down at a piece of metal,

plastic, and glass, diverting your 

attention from your life as it passes

without you knowing, because you 

are looking down, hashtag,

It's a hard life.