Been multiplying before your hashtags did
Before your digital sympathies, retweeting for the gathering of awareness
But I’m older than the awakening of empathy, more cunning than the force for change that does nothing but live in comfort
I’m more complex than the grumbling of stomachs of people you don’t know
More devastating than your forecasts of delinquent youths navigating rudderless futures
You serve at my throne with your thoughtlessness, your follies I caress in crevices away from the stares of men
You feel the intoxication of my elixir empowering you with quotes that build your empire, never sparing a brick to build the broken houses of the society you long to show your success
My seeds blossom in your fits of rage on roads, negative words you spew
Clapping your hands to pictures of optimism but never drew
I fortified your glass houses so you could keep throwing your stones, making your claims of unity and love laughable
I take no offense to your consumerism
Retweet your purchases, post your pics and let me applaud
I’m more than impoverished communities
More than economics that are never in harmony
More than outstretched hands at robots stirring your irritation
I’ve impoverished your hearts, sapped your souls of nourishment
Deprived you of your morality, stolen your will to act, fed you with the fear that keeps you shaking heads as you digest status quos
Made hashtags the substance of your activism and made you dine at banqueting tables of indifference
Emptied your leadership’s capacity, leaving your government’s spinning in circles like Ferris Wheels
Replaced servanthood with the same ambitions of empires that spare no brick to build other homes
Arming their self serving minds with the same self serving quotes and mantras
Feed your poor – but I’ve taken more ground in your existence than you believe