Look Up

If life
Was on a screen
Would you be able to breathe?

Or
Would you drown
Without a sound

Call it a game
Of likes and reels
Where no one feels

Call it connection
As your finger slides without any recognition from the brain
Is this what it feels like to go insane

Laughter unnoticeable rain
Each hit of endorphins momentary
Making this idea revolutionary

And so slips our words
On pages yellowed with age
A numbness replacing rage

And so dies our love
As we pretend code can be the same
As one with a brain

Because it emulates the feeling
You’ve lost with this screen
Of make believe

Look up
I beg
But there’s nothing left

We drag ourselves down
Smiling
Dying

Bones sunken in
But never seen through filters
Shouts muffled as whispers

Look up
I beg
I ask, “When?”

— Gabrielle Mata