While you cover your profile pictures with transparent flags
ranting how terrorism should stop
retweeting and reposting those gory pictures of the victims
keeping up with the latest news
and trying to flow with the trend
like if this was the new ice bucket challenge
but with blood water.

In all honesty,
Do you really pity the victims?
Do you really feel the sorrow?
Were your families even part?
Were your friends even part?
Were you a part?

Or are you doing it for the sake of Likes?

Only truly
if you hate terrorism,
act like as you really do
because you look stupid,
hating what social media tells you to hate.

And only truly
if you hate terrorism,
You would do something more than a click from social media.

If terrorists terrorize to change the world into their own,
what are we doing to change ours?

Open up a can of humans into bowl.
Add dashes of corruption and manipulation.
With a cup of the government, pour it slowly and discrete.
Dont forget to add money, taxes, high politics.
With a bag of bullets,
Drop about 20 deaths per minute.
You will need 2 tablespoons of police brutality, child abuse, ****.
3 cups of pollution and overcrowd toxic factories.
With spatula,
Flip over green gardens and wildlife.
Flatten it with concrete and buildings.
Chop up living creatures and get rid of any access fresh produce.
Add this to the chain of fast foods and overly priced merchandize.
While stirring, don't forget to add rigged votes.
Once mixed, bake in tanning bed till fake golden brown.
Make sure it isn't black.
Let it rise, but not plus size.
Take it out and stagger around it putting it on social media,
Retweeting, tagging, sharing, liking.
Let it cool then glaze it with conspiracy theories then you're done.
Enjoy America.

The Dems have taken back the House!
Hopefully, there now will be
For Donald Trump and his admin team
Some accountability.

For two years, Republicans
Have groveled before the man at the top,
Assisting him in obstructing justice.
The nonsense is going to have to stop.

The president's relationship
With the truth worsens every day.
Normal leaders would watch their step,
But his huge ego gets in his way.

Trump’s talking points, for instance,
At a recent Cabinet meeting
Were right out of Putin’s playbook--
Not worthy of even retweeting.

Well, now it’s about time
That members of Congress voice their concern.
Forget about being obsequious,
Mealy-mouthed or taciturn!

Now the American people will have
A House that really cares about them--
One that will fight for justice and also
Condemn that which it ought to condemn.

Many sworn into office today
Reflect diversity in their faces--
Mainly among the Democrats,
Who won highly competitive races.

Progressive change won’t be easy.
There’s STILL a storm that we have to weather:
Trump’s sycophants in the Senate--
Another story altogether.

The past two years have clearly shown us
What a horrible mess we're in.
Positive change will move us forward.
Let the oversight begin!

-by Bob B (1-3-19)

HATE AGAINST SELF-HATE

Convictions from your neighbor
Parents always find new problems to address
Nocturnal thoughts usher everything you did wrong
Everything you can’t obtain yet obsess
And there’s nothing like being reminded of your most cunning regrets

But you know what
It’s alright

It’s alright to not have your crush crush over you
To only have two of your 2000 followers actually tell you the truth
Like your post and send genuine messages below your texts after retweeting “we love you”

It’s alright
To not have a flat stomach
And skip a day of bathing now and then
To have a long list of contacts and have  more than 100 view your status but to only have one on your speed dial that you call a friend

Hey listen, it’s alright
To spend days in bed, alone
To switch of your data and switch it on a day later to no messages or missed calls and question the real reason you have a phone

To completely **** at social media
And have the oldest version of WhatsApp and actually deplete your data on tumblr, google searches and checking updates on Wikipedia
To spend months indoors, hey!
Better the chances of your survival if listeriosis decides to be airborne
To use twitter for the free ****

Don’t worry yourself
It’s alright
To actually be the real deal photographer when overnight picture takers already make money and you don’t
To not have the retro vans
In black and white
Or the adidas tracksuit pants with protruding stripes
You don’t have to lie about living your best life if your just the best at just living life

It’s alright
You don’t have to have 100 pictures on your Instagram
You can just use it until your crush posts about their break up
So you can go back to saying how ****** men are
How they can’t value you because you laugh at your own jokes
Simply because no one is around to say, that’s the third time now Grace
That while other girls have **** collections you have a meme collection

Baby girl it’s alright
To have Nicki Minaj’s album cover have you question the beauty of the girl in the reflection
Or how you don’t look like Beyoncé after you pointed at her hairstyle in the saloon
How you don’t know what it is that stops you from loving yourself the way you claim to with #Snack and #Mood on your Twitter

It’s called escapism, socially enticed envy and identity disphoria darling
You know what it is now so stop crying whenever your phone is off
Going live on Instagram and having two viewers and no comments is alright

In fact it’s completely fine
It’s alright
To be the way you are right now
To keep a healthy diet because you want to see what asparagus will do to your taste buds
It’s nasty by the way so stick to McDonald’s chips and Nando’s fresh buns ohh the white powder!!!
Why choose to starve yourself and master the catwalk when the runway isn’t calling
Why trip over love when you don’t remember falling
Why entertain rude guys to keep a social life when your solitude was never boring
Why complicate your life when you slept easier knowing your phone could be off but they called you simple
Now they have no words of comfort to crutch you when their shallow thoughts are the reason you’re socially crippled
Braam is dope
Pretoria is amazing
Rosebank is fantastic
but pizza at home with choc chipped ice cream watching the Avengers is just something

It’s alright bro
Six pack for who
I know brothers chiseled from iron that still get the flu
My crooked smile does wonders
These broad shoulder looking men that skip leg day are going through a stage
I personally go to the gym to outrun a dog that escaped from its cage

It’s alright fam
You are not the same
And that’s something great
As a kid you said you wanted to be different
You’re finally here
The next time you’re invited to a Braai
While others offer expectations, mediocrity and FOMO because they can’t wait
You’ll bring innovation, uniqueness, patiences and a true definition of what a human being is overflowing on your plate

It’s alright
Stay real!

I watched you fall in love with the blue bird.

When the weight of whatever you shouldered left you feeling like a cracked sidewalk. When the contents of your head look like a dirt patch with no Flora.
I watched you sink your hope in its wings. I watched you open your beak and tweet out a plea that someone would make sense of your puzzle pieces

Do you know that feeling, when you love someone who hates themselves. Like trying to paint a picture in the rain. Watching whatever you have to give dilute in the depreciation, your affection can't **** depression. But you had to try.

To me being absolutely powerless wasn't enough to stop trying so I tried.

I fashioned cannonballs out of phone calls Fired at any wall that seem to cage your smile.
I'm more difficult Days you’d dance between dejection and distress. I'd watch you waltz between the lines of every conversation you had that day and you overthink entities into the world around you. Demons that would pull at your eyelids as you tried to rest. Clawing abysses that sat in your stomach. You thought if you consumed nothing you could starve them before yourself.  You built an army of opponents all born from the belief that your calm sat beyond your own two hands. That the long drawn and difficult sighs you choked through was just how breathing worked.

You believed it was meant to hurt this much...and it did, and it does, but it's not supposed to.

Your graces hung in my sky like a star, and what would dim your shine would in turn dim mine
So I tried..

I’d say… talk to me.
A quiet plea, hoping you'd articulate the things I hadn’t seen.
But you existed behind a phone screen
You were swept away by the blue birds.
You slept in its nest hoping it would always return your quick fix.
You were one with the roost and your song was only audible through an application.

I lost a piece of you to twitter.

You slept in my bed.. we’d skip between oxytocin dreams of lustful energy or blissful lethargy and if the slumber was harmed we’d make enemies of snooze alarms. I knew frequency of your finger tips. I was in tune with the cacophony of your head space I curated the museum your beauty sat it. But you didn’t care. The bars between us looked more and more like hastags every day. Slowly I became just another follower... In 140 characters or less.. “My concern was the only thing you didn’t think was worth retweeting”

We are all performing for each other, sneaking furtive looks at our Facebook while big brother watches every move, so we try to be smooth but we’re mostly fooling ourselves, pooling our wealth into the pockets of the few who can exploit our intuitions and inhibitions, guiding our volitions into the abyss, artificial intelligence manipulating with elegance, effortlessly evading our defenses, we’re stuck in psychological trenches down so deep and so dark we keep the lights on with the spark of imagining our face up on the screen, fame or infamy we’ll take whichever if we can live forever, so the birds of a feather flock together, tethering into groups of similarity, reflecting and retweeting to infinity, infinite me, define me and refine me through the digital lens, cleanse me of my subpar self, replace me with an avatar elf, help me be the best and arrest the theft of my soul, life’s terrible toll, free me from reality by letting the real me, the me I want to be, finally be seen. But this method is madness, a pathway to sadness and regret, hours stolen by scrolling through feeds, reality filtered and enhanced, living for likes and shares from people who may not even care, who are just staring at screens, afraid to go outside, to be alive, because reality is out of their control, but maybe unpredictability can set you free, anonymity unraveling the blindfold we hold over our eyes, deflating the ego that social media’s creating, when you look outside and see how big the world can really be, humility sets you free, feeling small in the best way, resting in each day as a part of the whole, no longer constructing a fake soul for a digital audience to see, instead you can finally be. Just be.