Griefcase

Don’t come to me for answers

Don’t come to me for answers.

I just got the angst mounting up on my shoulders like I’m Atlas.

I saw the best minds of our generation

Destroyed by distraction,

Impatient,

Stripped naked, dumbed down till they grew vacant.

Like the abandoned houses that we played in, complacent.

Wake up,

We just built Babel again with bricks made out of aluminum and plastic cases.

Even if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat

Destined for the trap or for the cages.

We’ve been at this for ages,

They say the damage has been done,

Like I’m 80 with the stubs of 1000 daily cigarettes in my lungs.

I told them we can reclaim those days when we were young,

Buried under the rubble of everything that we’ve become.

We used to come down early on Saturdays for cartoons,

They say it’s time for us to grow up.

I say we grew up too soon,

Exposed to toxic fumes

Of pornographic views

Kidnapped by computers

We didn’t even understand how to use.

You have the right to be confused.

We used to play

Down by the football fields.

We used to hop the dry stone walls

And run down hills,

We’d hide behind the climbing frames,

Jumping from monkey bars,

Flirting with girls from class at the bus shelter.

We used to sprint home and drink Ribena juice from IKEA glasses

And raise them to the sky like toast-makers.

Our knees marked and grass stains on our shorts —

Then we learnt too much.

Our childhood was too short,

Short-circuited by circuit boards behind plastic walls.

I remember when we were bored —

I would give anything for that again.

We traded our attention for an algorithm,

But watch us take it back again.

There’s snakes in the cracks ,

I need to mind the gaps again,

Like I’m stepping on platforms over tracks in the black again.

Productivity hacks—how many more can we hack of them?

If I get one more ad telling coming at me, I’mma snap at them,

Our dreams were caught in time.

We didn’t listen to the warning signs —

Now the bags under our eyes are growing darker than the Northern Line.

Mr. Businessman,

I see your nice suit and your briefcase—

But what did you do with all the sorrow

You hid away for the sake

Of climbing ladders over green snakes?

Someone needs to make a grief-case

For the unprocessed pain we carry around with us each day.

It’s got to go somewhere—you gotta let it out.

We got two options left;

It’s a flood or it’s a drought,

Let your rage onto the page,

Don’t be dumb, just let it out.

The only thing worse than death

Is living numb in our house.