It's Instagrammable!

The longer you are on Instagram

The longer they are keeping you away

From the real world and it's real problems

I realized this only weeks after I uninstalled the app

That took half of my day staring at

Stories that had no beginning, middle or end

I had stayed up at nights and watched videos

Of cats and dogs and breakups over text and

"Instagram" celebrities

Lip-synching to songs and dialogues

And anything at all

I had watched videos of smooth things being cut by knives

To satisfy myself

While the books I bought last week still lay on the shelf

That had dust on it

I ate my food as my Instagram ate me

Even on the dinner table

My eyes only maintained eye contact

With the faces on my screen

While my family screamed

For their son’s attention

While I begged for an extension

Of phone time on the table

The last time I read an actual newspaper was ages ago

When I wasn’t consumed by visual content on the internet

But by a playground that kept me content for hours

I’ve even stared at flowers on some afternoons

But that isn’t the case of today in any way

When we TV screens and computer screens

And what not in our pockets

We’ve turned to lock screens from lockets

To store the pictures of our loved one’s

It’s been so long that we’ve actually looked at the sun

And said, it’s so beautiful and wholesome

There was a time where we weren’t actually scared of boredom

But now we’re scared to death

With every post, we try to find someone like us

With whom we can complain about procrastination

And keep ourselves further away from innovation

That may actually change the world

But we’re too busy changing our Instagram feed

Following the trend and becoming a part of the creed

The doesn’t even know we exist

So we keep on smiling and posing and putting up stories at tryst

While my tryst with destiny is

Liking the memes that my friends are sending me

While my neck is now a bending tree

That my screen is controlling

But I’ve been too busy scrolling

And hoping for better friends and better hobbies

For better things to do and better bodies

That are more aesthetic and Instagrammable

Prove to the world that man is a social animal

And the emphasis here is on the word animal and not social

We were given this virtual world but without any caution

That we won’t be able to find our way out of this labyrinth

Unlock our phones to lock ourselves in it with a fingerprint

I fear that our Instagram IDs are also the cages they built for our futures

To be locked inside

While we try to hide

Every tragedy with vanity

We keep sharpening our pictures

And blurring out the reality

Of who we really are when the filters are taken out

When the camera is shut and we face self doubt

Despite having two hundred thousand followers

When our low self esteems swallow us

Who are we then

We easily share relatable memes and say ’10 outta 10’

Me

And the others send us thumbs up to agree

We keep our eyes from blinking

So that we can stare for longer

And make ourselves stronger

To more screen time

You opened this app around 6ish and look it’s already 9

But there are more videos that you have to see

And more posts you want to like

But there so many things you wanted to be as a child

And so many poems that you are yet to write

So uninstall Instagram,

And actually, look into faces on the dinner table

I only look into my phone to see the time

As all my app notifications are now disabled

And write down a poem of everything that you know

And everything that you’ve learnt

Turn yourself away from Instagram,

It’s time to face the real world…