And now for Anna’s WRITE HERE, WRITE NOW entry ...

2018

Each morning, we log in to life: our phones come flashing alive
with pinging sirens of social media, electricity abuzz, pulsing
notifications from handheld hardware into our soft palms, our sleepy cores

switched into gear, our think-circuits wired back
into tech-mode: back to tapping apps and quickly clicking
from tab to tab and ad to ad. In cyberspace

we orbit URLs like UFOs,
and follow the stars of reality TV shows
on repeat, then retweet/ like/ favourite/ share/ tick

this box if you are not a robot. We communicate in clicks;
speak in fluent Keyboard, inscribe Emojis onto tablets –
(futuristic hieroglyphics) – crafting comments like fiery comets,

launching online rants like bombastic rockets lost CTRL;
no halt or delete – just hit send, take-off: we are the pilots
of private screens, plunging our generation

into the online portal: landing on impassive planets
where we can’t conceive the gravity of our typed words;
warped into a world wide web of posting statuses

without checking our own to make sure we’re still a face
without the -book. But as long as we’re linked in, our profiles likable,
we hide behind insta-filters: upgrade our selfies but not ourselves

before the day is eclipsed with clickbait and blogging,
then logging out. We sleep aside our iPhones and Samsung Galaxys,
recharging in the static glow of a screensaver stock photo of the moon;

and outside Windows, beyond the scope
of Wi-Fi, slow scrolling through a network of its own;
the unfiltered moon lights up a broader black screen:
a live-streamed signal of the unplugged world.


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