Status Update – 8:03 PM

My most accurate portrayal
resides at the top left corner of my screen;
a face so exquisitely composed,
so flawless in its feminine glory,
it will never confess to being digitally perfected.

 

I’m nothing less than a model
on the flat, inanimate screen
that can feign its third dimension,
yet where is the disclaimer announcing that
every time we proofread our message before we hit send
we add another layer of pretension
to the perfection we try to portray?

 

I’m a philosopher;
I’m a scholar;
I’m a therapist;
I’m an astronaut;
On Facebook.

 

With my keyboard I can paint myself a face
of the most respected beer-pong player in New Jersey -
the most infamous vegan activist in the Tristate Area,
titles standing before faulty truth
where my unanimated lips can argue,
“Well… sort of.”

 

Don’t believe me?
There is physical DIGITAL evidence
on display for all my friends
and friends of friends to admire;
            Just take a look.

 

Devote another 45 seconds of your day
to that 3 by 5 inch box that encompasses a galaxy
more captivating than our reality
will ever become.

 

Look down
because we found time to.
Plus another six spare seconds to argue
that we work too much to start growing a garden in the fall.
Look down
because you’d prefer the face captured on your wall
over the one from which you try to shield your eyes
when brushing your teeth in the morning -
Because you’d rather look down
Because you have the choice to look down,
and its so much harder to smile with
white foam on your lips
and #nofilter traced with pimples on your forehead.

 

Because what could you possibly catch by looking up?
The contagious recognition that the color spectrum
from your left peripheral view to your right
is more diverse to the insignificant shade
than that in the device in which you are enveloped.
That we are programmed to find beauty
in things we can never truly obtain,
that we can never truly roll in our fingertips
and catch the scent of before the crosswalk turns green.


But if we could just look up…

 

We could wipe from this faulty,
exquisitely vibrant mechanism
the need for unattainable perfection,
or the fear of unedited communication,
and find time to plant a lemon tree in August.

 

This poem is about: 
Me
My community
Our world
Poetry Terms Demonstrated: 

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