Inside the Screen

This is a poem of the real effects of social media and phones on a mentally struggling teenage girl

Silence

No more long buzzes,

No more anticipation of a response,

No more lack of responses.

 

Loneliness

Feelings of rejection when no one made the effort to reach out to me.

Tired from trying when no one else was,

Tired of trusting when betrayal always came next.

But when that buzz made the table vibrate,

And a feeling of importance,

Significance,

Worth,

Came with it.

Notifications began to have too much meaning.

Social media became an obsession.

When would this cycle of unhappiness end?

The constant comparison of myself to others,

The constant search for validation from everyone else.

A wish to be noticed,

But from who?

Anyone who would give me their attention.

But they always wanted something,

They always wanted to do more than talk.

But that wasn’t the goal?

Deep down all I wanted was to feel wanted,

Desired by someone else,

But I felt the only way I could get that was with my body and my looks.

I mean that is the first thing people go for.

But after being treated like an object for so long,

It wasn’t healthy for me to be thinking like this.

 

It was a hopeless search in all the wrong places for someone who would care for me,

Someone who would appreciate me,

Someone who would love me.

Because I was desperate to find someone to pick up the pieces

That everyone else had left behind.

 

Teenagers

Everyone seeking to fill a void,

Whether with alcohol, smoking, drugs, or people.

No one is true to themselves,

At least not most people I know

Because of fear of non-acceptance

Into a crowd of fake people.

Seeking to impress everyone and

Eventually failing to impress yourself.

Too much pressure,

Whether social, academic, or other.

We hide our problems behind all the parties,

All the drinking, smoking, and drugs,

All the hooking up.

Because all these things are distractions

From the struggles each of us tries to cope with every day.

Almost everyone is fake and with ulterior motives.

 

So I logged out,

I shut it off,

Because I needed a break.

I needed time to myself without the poisonous buzzes.

Because my head was already plagued with thoughts

And I needed to get away from such a fake world.

 

Silence

Both peaceful and stressful.

But it’s nice knowing I have some control,

Because I can always remove myself from the false reality in my screen

No matter how hard it tries to suck me back in.

I can decide when I will log back on,

I can decide when I will log back off,

I can reflect in the silence and figure out how to not go down the same road again,

Of searching in this fake world for real happiness.

Because I will only be disappointed in the end.

Author's Note

Please leave compliments and feedback so that I know I'm getting the right message across!