On the laptop screen, the unreal reel of other lives
Look who I'm with! Look where I've been: OUTSIDE inside, right beside the tide!
Displays of glowing multibit colour: One plane wing, the same as an other
squashed-flat and distilled – a ubiquitous dimension of multi-mentionitis.
My burning body, the most real thing in the room. Small, still, too-warm mammal with overbearing flesh
Then the succulents, plump and slow, content in their quiet juicy existence
Then the deadwood shelves that once groaned with the clutter of busy work.
They used to be alive.
Tech took this mammal to the public sphere, only to return it unwitnessed.
The Outsiders pay no heed, for they are the reel-upon-reel real deal, playing with life, lording over it.
Ⓒ Paula Knight, July 2022
Longlisted, Disabled Poets Prize 2023.