“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently—they’re not fond of rules.”

~ Steve Jobs 

Friends flock to Cancun and such hot places
in pair-bonds
perhaps not cloaked in the beach-perfect bodies
of magazine ads,
but it’s all we can afford.

The trips represent our acceptance
of the all-inclusive,
the teeny snippets of ‘free’ time us ‘D.I.N.K.S.’
(and ‘S.I.N.K.S.’) are granted and
told to be grateful for.

Our thirties define peak
energy, focus, time, drive
to do things like
sit for hours staring at screens
searching for—
something.
Sifting through ads
depicting dilapidated houses.

We tell stories of mouldy walls and
too-low ceilings in
barely-rentable basement suites,
seeking starter homes
or simply a space
cheap enough to let us
pay off student loans.

This morning I saw the time
but did not absorb it: it’s as if
my brain refuses to take orders
from the visual digital signals
constructed like cardboard forts to
help us define moon and sun phases.

Little squares
stacked in columns
tightly packed rows
structure our life with artificial fervour:
how I (we) crave the organic time-structures
we once thrived on.

Do we count down with hope
or is this just another set of numbers
that helps them set us up
section us out
in neat stacks and columns
categorically, orderly,
separate stalls 
so that they may dictate
how (and why) we spend our time?

We have no choice now but
to teach ourselves how to think (dream, feel)
beyond those boxes,
to reconnect and show each other
(how) to self-sustain.

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Ed: Bryonie Wise