Progress Is A Bitch

We’re evolving,

and yet somehow, we’re getting worse —

More suited to climb corporate ladders,

but less skilled at catching each other’s eyes

We’ve unlocked the power of the stars,

but we can’t seem to hear each other’s hearts anymore

We’ve built skyscrapers that scrape the sky,

but they’re hollowed out inside

More walls between us than ever,

yet we’ve never been more “connected”

Text me, sext me, jerk off in hordes to my auctioned nudity on your screens —

but don’t you dare look me in the eye

You’d think, with all this knowledge,

we’d learn how to be human again

But no, we’ve perfected the art of being strangers

in the same room

So many friends, so little friendship

So many followers, so much loneliness

I scroll through my life like it’s a social media feed —

an endless charade of pointlessness

but the void never seems to close

Fingers swipe on glass,

but can’t touch the warmth of real flesh

We built machines to help us,

and they gave us algorithms to divide us—

Data points over dinner plates,

ads on the streets we used to walk hand-in-hand once

We sold our souls for convenience,

and now we can’t remember what it was

like to be seen for who you are

Oh, the irony

We’ve evolved so much,

and yet we’ve forgotten

how to simply be

We’ve figured out how to live forever

in a digital timeline,

but we can’t figure out

how to live in the present

And here we are —

in the land of endless connection,

but only with the echoes of ourselves

A thousand voices,

and yet no one to hear

A thousand faces,

and not a single one to caress

Humanity is the last thing we know how to hold,

and technology?

Well, it’s just the silent witness,

keeping score while we forget

how to be anything but alone