not just a screen

There’s war in Europe, 

but this time the US has stopped selling guns,

Not to join in or contain the spread,

But to talk with the invaders,

Agree with the propaganda that’s said.

A Cold War is happening,

But not with Russia this time,

Conflict still occurs all around the earth,

But wars break out on our very own streets,

As his army is deployed, targeting birth.

A generation is dying from war.

Drafted into the minefield of media,

Forced into a battle of wills,

For no matter how many mountains you cross,

There will still be a hundred more hills.

The pressure increases ever more by the day,

How many hits until you stay down,

How many liars until you are silenced, words locked in your mind,

How much noise before your ears are ringing,

How much acid until your eyes are burned blind?

They tie an anchor to our hearts,

And throw us in the storm.

We are drowning, in a sea of videos, and tweets, and thunder,

An ocean of knowledge we can’t erase,

Clinging to the hope they bury six feet under

But you can’t breathe with your head below the surface,

You slowly suffocate: 

You can’t trust what you see, what you hear, can’t say anything at all,

 It's hard to form thoughts; to think through the fog,

As your heart is poisoned from the inside out, you fall.

‘Cause what can you do, in your room, on your phone,

Scrolling and scrolling, endlessly on,

Hiding from the things you enjoy—the colors and hues,

From a country you can’t bare to watch burn itself down,

From the assassins bearing smiles up on the news.

‘Cause what can you do on your phone in your room,

When the world seems hellbent on speeding towards its doom?