
Holly Stamp
Our Future World Leaders & Childhood
Our future world leaders
will be iPad kids
will have grown up with screens
and robots
and toys
that don’t involve human contact
aren’t played face to face
and that is the future
of the whole human race
i know i’ll be long gone by then
and who knows when
it might be
that we as a species
are taken over by pieces
of metal and plastic
hardwiring and interface
replacing soft skin and
warm embrace.
a patriotic age now rooted in screens
echoed voices of hundreds and thousands of tweens
who pledge allegiance to the red white and blue light
the brainwashing device
of a new line of sight
a generation of kids
that need glasses for distance
eyes gone square from television persistence
this dystopian future becoming reality
buffers my brain
rewires my sanity
yet i sit at my laptop
headphones plugged into my phone
a timer beeps downstairs
from the new google home
it’s already begun
the age of automation
we can’t know what will happen
to the world’s conservation
it seems to me there’s already been
quite enough devastation
in my life alone.
so maybe robots will be better than MPs
at running the nation.
Childhood
grass stained gingham
and scuffed black shoes
i only got them last week
from the shoe lady at clark’s
with the measuring machine that is still
so cool
permanently grazed knees
from one too many cartwheel attempts
because i swear i’ll get the hang of it soon!
but i never did
and i don’t have the energy now
or the determination
or the unfaltering confidence
of a nine year old
with her sticky palms
and pen covered dress
i had plaits down to my waist then
and permanently flushed cheeks
chapped lips
constant fidgets
can we go play now??
programmed into my hard palette
i miss her a lot
i hope she’d be proud of me