Have I The Right To Scream?
Oops I think I did it again!
Substituting great for good
Even what’s only blah….
Just middle-of-the-road
And all for what?
Doomscrolling. TikToking.
Forgetting all the books.
Fast dopamine. Rapid responding.
Quick relief and pleasure sensing
Don’t I already know
The perils of this digital life?
Didn’t I read Newport. Twenge.
Jonathan Haidt?
Yet I still fall.
Again and again I pick up that
Rectangular piece of metal
That offers me endless “delights”
Numbs me from the narcotic it pimps.
So if I, a full-grown man
Succumbs so easily
Replacing the Great
– greenery, slow reading, meditating, communing F2F
With the mediocre. The blase.
The endless reams of online memes?
Then upon what authority do I tell my kids
“Stop looking at your phone/iPad/screen?”
Do I have the right
At them
to scream?
