A Poem by Leonard Pigg III

Attuned to the background noise, we wallow in ambivalence.

Every day I see the loneliness on the faces of so many amid the crowd.

We forget ourselves.

Thousand yard stares off into the ether.

We lose ourselves in the shuffle.

Convince yourself you need a new phone every year.

Face down in the electronic devices.

Ears covered in expensive headphones to tune the world out.

Smoke from a machine because the commercial says its safe.

Too busy to respond to others reaching out via calls, text or facebook messages, but always have time for a status update.

There’s always time for another selfie.

Let’s make ourselves prettier than advertised.

Lie to the world and yourself.

Everything is going to be fine.

There is no pain, there is no suffering.

The agenda of self will be the undoing of many and when the dust settles, they will find themselves truly alone.

People curse themselves with reckless abandon, ignoring the world and cry out when nobody is there to respond.

We are our own greatest enemy.

 

Leonard Pigg is an author, photographer, and writer. More about Leonard can be found here. This poem originally appeared here and is republished here with permission.