Children of the Blue Glow

We gather every evening

around a different fire now.

No crackling logs,

no drifting sparks,

only silent rectangles

casting oceans of blue

across our faces.

The glow knows our names.

It remembers

what we bought,

what we feared,

what made us laugh at midnight

when sleep waited patiently

outside the door.

We carry tiny universes

in our pockets,

consulting them

like prophets.

Which road should I take?

What's the weather tomorrow?

Who agrees with me?

Who doesn't?

Answers arrive instantly,

yet certainty grows rare.

Our thumbs travel farther

than our feet.

Forests become wallpapers.

Mountains become hashtags.

Sunsets become evidence

that we were somewhere beautiful.

Even silence struggles to survive.

A single idle moment

summons a screen.

A single question

awakies a search.

A single notification

pulls the mind away

like a fishhook.

Still,

beyond the glass,

the world continues.

Rain taps old rhythms

against the windows.

Birds rehearse songs

that require no audience.

The wind scrolls

through the leaves

without needing approval.

Sometimes,

just before dawn,

when batteries fade

and networks sleep,

I remember another kind of light.

Not the manufactured glow

of pixels and promises,

but sunlight

slipping over rooftops,

patient and free.

It asks for nothing.

No password.

No subscription.

No update.

Only that we look up.

And for a moment,

the world reloads itself—

not on a screen,

but in our eyes.