“You only live once ‒ that's the motto n***a YOLO
And we 'bout it every day, every day, every day”
For T. S. Eliot
I'm too lazy to do a MLA citation
I. The Burial of the Brain-Dead
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Senioritis out of the brain-dead, mixing
BS-ing and boredom, stirring
Not a care with spring semester.
Winter kept us inside, covering
Reality in forgetful snow, feeding
Off the light on screens in front of us.
Summer welcomed us, coming over the Internet
With an ice-bucket shower; we stopped when it got old,
And went on with the next trend-ing hashtag,
And drank Starbucks and texted 5ever.
#typicalwhitegirl
And when we were children, lying about our age
To make accounts, a stranger friended me on Facebook,
And I was catfished. He messaged: Sally,
Sally, take my hand. Don't cry, don't raise your iPad,
It's only teenage waste land.
Online, there you feel free.
I watched Netflix, much of the night, and wasted the life I never had.
What are the roots that show, what ombré grow,
Out of this virtual rubbish? #basicwhitegirl,
You can't even, or guess, for you know only
A timeline of filtered images, where the sun sets,
And the square space gives no shelter, the caption no relief,
And the lols no sound of laughter. Only
There are 1000+ likes and even more followers,
(Follow me and I will follow back),
And I will show you something similar to
Your artsy aesthetic at 2 am scrolling behind you
And your soft grunge aesthetic rising to meet your theme;
I will show you commercialized fear in AHS.
The squad goal is here,
The happy ones are near,
Let's get together,
Before we get much older.
“You texted me first a year ago;
“They called me your bae.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from Homecoming,
Your arms stiff, and your hair slicked, I did not
Text back, and my iPhone died, I was neither
Living nor dead, I literally knew nothing,
Looking into the Heart of Darkness, the SparkNotes.
Required reading never done.
Kim Kardashian, famous socialite,
Had a bad rep, nevertheless
Is known to be the selfiest woman on Instagram,
With a notorious family. Here, said she,
Is the matriarch, the divorced Kris Jenner
(Those are plastic that were her b**bs. Look!)
Here is Bruce Jenner, the domesticated Olympian,
The lady of publicity.
Here is the sis with three babies, and here the third Wheel,
And here is the puffy-lipped Kylie, and this cup,
Which is s**ed, is something to record,
Which I am entertained to see. I do not find
The Cup Song. Don't miss when gone.
I see crowds of paparazzi, stalking me.
Thank you. If you see model Kendall,
Tell her I'm her biggest cheerleader:
One must be so gullible these days.
Virtual World,
Under the lens fog of a cracked screen,
A crowd flocked over Black Friday, so many,
I had not thought shopping had undone so many.
Holidays, commercial and frequent, were consumed,
And each man fixed his eyes before material things.
Flowed up to the cyberspace on Monday,
For it's the only thing black and unarmed in America
That doesn't have to worry about being terminated.
Then I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying, “catluver96!
“You who were with me at the Apple Store!
“That post you created last year in your twitter,
“Has it begun to trend? Has it reached 1000 retweets?
“Or has the sudden unrest disturbed your bed?
“Oh keep the Doge meme, such amaze, much wow,
“Or to the attention span of a goldfish he'll succumb!
“U! hypocrite! jk –my twin—my bro!”