Use canned spaghetti as thread to stitch together the frayed edge of your t-shirt. Use your t-shirt to show how you’re the coolest most-hippest, most up with the kids kid there is. Where’d you get that shirt? Online.

Bop your head to the music so they know you know this song. Harder or they won’t see you. That’s not hard enough. Neck snap! Yeah, right there. Hold still while I take a photo. Do you mind if I make this my cover photo?

Take a selfie of you crying in the bathroom and hashtag it. Snapchat it to your local MP so they know how you feel - be sure to use an emoji. #studentdebt Tears streaming down your face. (If it’s a hashtag it’s easier to emotionally process.) #policebrutality #throwbackthursday #massincaceration It’s a good thing there’s emojis for black people now. Look at how far we’ve come!

#nomakeup #vegan #crueltyfree #childslavelabour #iwokeuplikethis #campusrape #notallmen #yesallwomen #freethenipple #2k16 #mentalhealthcuts #stopkillingtranswomen #waterislife #standwithstandingrock

Have you followed Human Rights on Facebook? It’s the only way to get them. Have you seen the Ted Talk about it? In just 20 minutes you’ll know everything there is know about it.

Sorry. You don’t seem like you’re focused. You’re thirsty? Let me make you a smoothie.
I’ll put the chocolate bar in the blender whole, leave the wrapper on. Taste the tinfoil and the plastic. Eat the barcode, become the product. That’s modern life.

Don’t take out the hair or the fingernail or the Band-Aid. Don’t hide from the human components of the production line that made this Kit-Kat possible for you, kid. That’s modern life.

Go to the voting booth, refuse to choose between the diversity of 50 versions of the same smiling white man. Scrawl: **** these ******! (have no faith in none of them) That’s modern life.

With jittering teeth and goosebumps, put your toaster in the sink. Overflow it with water. You will only need a fork to get warm. Electrocution is the most economical form of heating. Be Energywise. That’s modern life.

Puff marijuana smoke through the bars into the brown faces of those who were incarcerated for doing what you freely do now. That’s modern life.

Burn your eyes on the screen. But before you do, memorise the 0800 number for the optometrist.

Post your suicide note on YikYak to save paper. No-one likes reading hard copies these days anyways. #papercuts #selfharm

Search for motivation on EBay. If you’re lucky it’ll have free shipping and arrive in 1-5 business days.

Snapchat your friend’s words of encouragement, God knows they’ve seen enough dickpics.

Take a chicken to KFC and tell them you’re sorry.

Get in the cars of the men who yell “Hey baby!”. They’ll be so surprised they wont know what to do next.

Swap your woman-chest with a man-chest and see if your ******* are still illegal.

Drive through town throwing dirt with one hand and seeds in the other. Maybe, if you do it long enough this claustrophobic concrete will be gone.

Bleed on every seat until the government pays for menstrual products.

Train seagulls to throw YOU chips.

**** a woman and a man simultaneously, so that you can be sure everyone knows you’re bisexual.

Blockade inaccessible buildings with piles of wheelchairs.

Grab time by the fabric and rip it, cuz we all know rips look really punk, and all you really are is just some young punk.

Black glass
Hugged by plastic.
A rigid, shiny stone,
Holy and smooth as silk.

It calls upon you.
Its dark face glowing with glee,
its still form
trembling in tantrum.

Eyes gawk eagerly while
dexterously trained fingers
Slide their grease-stained trail
across its blossoming surface,
trapped in vanity.
A technological marvel,
one might say,
it’s glistening roads worshipped and
Truly wondrous.

All the images: moving, smiling, addicting.
The knowledge of the universe, packed into
a tiny, plastic cocoon,
festering, growing, evolving,
eager to be eaten.

Endorsing gluttonous laze, and
Unmasking humanity’s
unseemly colors;
it lulls you in with its
digital spindle embrace, the
sharp strings of data
reaching in through the eyes and
touching the optic nerve.
Neurons swell in ecstasy, pupils dilate, the heart screams;
matter of the brain catches fire in
its electrical storm, and
cascades into chemical ******.

Satiating a toxic lust.
Brilliant glass
turns to black,
stuck to your hand like glue.

Does everything look perfect there?
From where your standing, looking in.
Do you want everything I have?
Is what you have not as good?
From where your standing, looking in.

My life isn't perfect, just like yours.
Come on in, come and see.
Stand beside me and you'll see.
I'm just like you & I long to be
On the outside looking in.

Some people climb social media mountain
and post photo of them on top for all to see.

I just be chilling phone-off on third floor
apartment porch,
walking down staircase to ground level
down sidewalk
beneath stone high rise, winter sky,
gas station coffee in hand, face buried in non-face book
about those sleepless mountain climbers above.

I cross street as they tread slopes like high wire walkers,
and I'm walking onto this train as they make tracks,
breathing in the Views gained from the heights
to which they've climbed as I yawn
on subway car underground and recline
unseen beneath hoodie,
them racing to the top
and me coasting south, still in book,
flipping non-web page to next chapter
of them turning to look down at the crowds below
and the tracks they made
as if imprinting their story in the blank pages of the snow.

My stop arrives,
so I tuck away book unfinished in backpack
while they hike onward up Facebook wall
and continue stamping marks on snowy phone screen in darkness,
as I brush past them on street level thru city night unnoticed,
and their eyes squint back in pursuit of the likes of me and the gazes of strangers the morning they return from king of hill conquest, welcomed by followers of their stories waiting to be liked and loved.

The likes of me walk on back up to third floor apartment,
book shelved,
dreams of mountains blurred in the chill
of morning fog on the window,
in the freeze of internet page on the. screen.

'Likes' are not hugs.

Comments are not kisses.

Views are not a hand holding mine.

And yet I crave this attention more than anything. Eyes stretched wide, I live for that next hit, the next 'like'. I lose sleep over how many views I need to keep going. I am a wasteland of media, searching for any signs of life.

I am despirate.


I am addicted.



I am far from social.

-t.s.

Fights, terror, bomb blasts
The deafening sirens forever lasts
In the hearts and souls of many
Who confront such hurtful journey
Each day living and dying
Running to save lives, trying
But the inhumane are ******
Polished by government, well toned
How long will this war last?
How many more humans will fast?
With no food or water to feed
The women and children in need
News flash in on different channels
As media handsover the control panels
In the hands of those behind the curtains
Laying out the corrupt media patterns
I often get sad and wonder,
Why should we only "Rest In Peace"
Why can't we all live in Peace too!!

©sim