Our phones locations are tracked via satellites up among the stars,
Our lives are just data, seemingly offered up on a plate.
Our movements are tracked through the license plates of our cars,
Welcome the world that we all live in, the surveillance state.

They see our world via millions of not so hidden ears and eyes,
They observe our lives, what we do and do not manage.
They watch us invisibly, like shadow shrouded spies,
They claim to protect us but they can also do damage.

Devices we created for our own protection,
Supposedly keeping us honest, on the path right and true.
Also open to abuse and spying since their very inception,
Watching every move that we make and all that we do.

Electronic ears that are listening to our conversations and calls,
Every sound we make heard even if to whisper we try.
Electronic eyes that are bolted on our roofs and walls,
Our very footsteps just reflection in a lifeless glass eye.

Our personal matters now seem open to all, on land, sea and sky,
Our right to privacy eroded no matter how hard we tried.
No longer just the threats and the guilty are kept tabs on from on high,
No matter how innocent we are, we have nowhere left to hide.

We used to make effort to keep up with our closest of friends,
Now we contact so many at once, its far too easy to take them for granted.
Hours spent talking and planning to meet no longer seem like efficient ends.
These new platforms mean meeting and talking are now totally supplanted.

We are now pressured to keep up with everyone we ever met,
Desperate to have new views and new content that we can share.
Obsessing about views or how many likes that we get,
Quantity of friends rather than quality now seems to be the primary care.

People we never wanted to see again that were always too much,
No contact in decades and still no contact now.
The bullies from school that now really must stay in touch,
They now know exactly what we do, they why when and how.

The urges to check in and reply to posts just as soon as we wake,
We want to be the first to post the latest big thing, that we agree to or doubt,
Not taking time to think before posting can be such a mistake,  
We respond to every post so quickly for fear of missing out.

Responding too fast to choose the correct words with care.
All cues of intent or meaning are dispersed in the data stream.
Showing how much we care seems dependant on how quickly we respond or share.
A Medium where tone of voice is lost its hard to tell what we really mean.

Relationships easily soured that were so important to us for decades,
Intentions misread thanks to the way words typed in haste can be taken.
Innocent words we forget can be taken in a light that cast uncomfortable shades,
Our confidence in what we try to say to loved ones sorely shaken.


People are now saying things they don’t believe just to spark an online fight,
No cares about the speed that lies and disinformation can now spread.
Cowardly keyboard warriors with diminishing concepts or what is wrong or right.
No fact checking to speak of, the truth behind in the dust, left for dead.

We repeat as fact what we were told “By a mate down the Pub”,
Burying uncomfortable truths we just don’t want to perceive.
Shout it loudly over the facts and drown them out just to “be In the club”,
Replace those truths with convenient lies we would seemingly rather believe.

A place for new friends and old friends to happily get together and greet.
Perverted by sick groomers, scammers, criminals, trolls to spout their cowardly abuse.
Envisioned as a safe and friendly place for us all to come together and meet.
Used to destroy lives, to steal our possessions and identities, to tear down and confuse.

Social Media casually breaking the strongest friendships and bonds without a care.
Social Media can be dangerously manipulated and that is sadly true.
Social Media, be careful how much of yourself that you share.
Social Media its called but the opposite is honestly what it seems to do.

The world I know feels changed, subtle and dramatic at a frenetic pace.
The world I knew may never return, less kind and innocent, less nurturing and safe.

The sanctuary of home feels threatened, the rest of the world locked away.
Barriers both invisible and yet tangible, sentinels of risk and peril that watch over our day.

Bonds of family and friendship are tested in new ways both cruel and twisted.
Our ability to help those in need, curtailed, our help in times of need are restricted.

Our world is a place of extremes and monotony all at once, a mad spectrum contorted.
Life risking heroes overlooked by the establishment, but from the masses, applauded.

Moments of joy half shared, through odd bubbles of safety defined.
Moments of sadness part consoled, the calming embrace of loved ones confined.

Between it all is a grind, waiting for it to end and the “New Normal” to begin anew.
To understand the world we emerge to, as the light at the end hoves into view.

The end an elusive moving target always so cruelly moved  just out of our reach.
A zest for life and an optimism our children all need, is getting harder to teach.

The wisest cannot say when we will emerge from this most endless gloom.
Will then end bring out renewed hope, for some the end will only be their doom.

This year should have been amazing, an Olympic summer of sport as our treat.
The year has gone badly wrong, hardly good news at all, perhaps try Control Alt Delete.

The year 2020, with goodness almost devoid
Not even a 1 star review “I’d Recommend You Avoid”

Life it seems, gets harder,
The more of it you live.
No matter what you take from life,
There is always so much more you give.

That’s how life can feel sometimes,
When you feel stuck in an endless grind.
It’s hard to shake that feeling,
When it’s made home in your mind.

When “Shake it off” is not an option,
When you’re not “Just in a mood”.
You feel a deeper, darker problem,
And the word “Depression” seems well proved.

The apathy of everything,
The inability to even rise from bed.
There is no comfort that it’s not reality,
And that the problem is “Just in your head”

There is no shame in asking for help,
For needing to grasp that outstretched hand.
But too many feel it a sign of weakness,
An action that somehow feels banned.

So the pit in your stomach grows deeper,
And it threatens to swallow you up.
You feel shameful for wanting that hand,
The offered hand in pushing you up.

Admitting you have a problem to yourself,
Is perhaps the hardest of steps to take.
But it puts a new path before you,
Toward a better life is the journey you now make.

Another big step may await you,
And you need it for things to improve.
Admit to others that you are in crisis,
And accept the outstretched hand is your move.

Help when we battle our demons,
Is the birth right of man, woman and child.
Asking for the help that you need,
Should be applauded and never reviled.

Mental health is of vital importance,
That idea needs to be firmly implanted.
The mind is a beautiful and delicate thing,
So never take yours for granted.