Screens

Metal mesh that keeps out bugs
I can handle those;
Pliable bendable breathable.
But we've invented new screens,
Backlit backdrop desktops,
And we use them not as breezeways
Instead as blockades

I'm guilty too, so please don't think
I wrote this as a critique of just you.
My screen can dim in darkness,
Careful not to keep my roommate up at night
A cursor blinks ready for swift fingers
To send it whizzing through pages,
Faster than I flip through books anymore.
It has seen the profane, taken part in tainting
Useful in displaying to the world
My apathy, cynicism, and brains.

These screens we all run behind remind
Me of the days we had a sliding back door
To enter into a world
Of breezes, pollen, playing.
But screens are not any longer membranes of going
My family keeps retreating
I keep believing
The world in this half centimeter thick
Piece of plastic technologic
Tricks
Is a brighter and more fun one
Than what lies beyond curtains, glass and metal mesh
Which can be unlatched and slid and undone.

Screens keep blinding me,
Instead of the sun beyond them inviting me
To rediscover conversation,
Minutia and relation.
All around they glare,
Spinning my mind around
Confused and searching and wanting
And lonely in every way and everywhere.

Even now I'm writing, cowering and
Not fighting
Behind a screen of backlight white
Publish, power down, and sleep.
Press my nose against the screen that keeps the
Winter rain from flooding in,
Feel drops become freckles
And remember that I have a face that needs to face
The world unscreened, full on
Flesh covered and
Seen.