by Siddiq Islam

People have always sun-swum in the summer,
And bathed in broad buttercups under blue skies.
People have always been meadow-grass thumbers,
And combed with fresh fingers the fields where they lie.

Oh, let me go back to those mild, milky meadows,
Where life flows with ease, undisrupted and mellow.
I’d stretch like a starfish, alone there for hours,
Perusing the clouds as I thumb through the flowers.

But aeroplane trails scrape away at my heavens,
And I’m there, neck scrunched and hunched over my screen,
DM-ing ‘acquaintances’ I’ve never seen,
With screenshots that blind me and music that deafens.
Oh, let me go back to that buttercup bed,
Where white, fluffy thoughts float at peace through my head.