Pound Sign of the Modern Scores

One quarter a score ago,

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger

birthed an application that has, since then,

Grabbed the face of social media

And made it its own.

A revolution,

An e-canvas,

A platform to be made our own.

Yeah, my own,

but the angle’s just gotta be right;

The lighting’s gotta be on point;

The eyebrows gotta be on fleek;

And when the shutter goes down,

I’ve gotta take a couple hundred more.

And once I’ve choose one- just one-

I’m not done.

Crop the flaws,

Layer the filters,

Layer the filters,

Layer the filters.

Finish up with a #NoFilter,

am I right?

The times are different from

Four score and seven years ago,

Because Renoir’s canvas was hemp and linen,

And mine is my face in all of its

Acne-ridden, even-color-lacking, caterpillar-fuzzy glory.

Glory with a positive connotation,

Because the pound sign of the modern scores

Took a lot of embracing and loving and absorbing

Of the face that greets me in the morning,

every morning, naked makeup-ed.

Glory that lets me own the chunks that hide my cheekbones;

You know impressionism was chunky, too.

Own the nude arches above my eyes

And my stumpy fiber-lashes- un-inked;

You know contemporary minimalism is the epitome of bare.

Own the utter tan-ness of my skin;

You know expressionism is drama and color and innovation,

and my skin bleeds innovation through my colored pores.

One snap; that’s the real #NoFilter.

A canvas that has been modified

Cannot encompass the art of the ages

When filters are the rubber ends of history’s sketch.

Authenticity at its best,

and when my lips are curved authentically

They speak without a filter;

Even those who cannot see

Can hear me-

Really me, truly me,

Me in its genuine glory.

48 lines and 1,400 characters ago,

I slipped out of a mold;

Built my platform on the solid

Pound sign of the modern scores.

#NoFilter.