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