It's Instagrammable!
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…