Love in the Age of Surveillance

It’s a brave new world thirty years after 1984.

It’s an age of ageism and app(le) consumption.

It’s an era of expanding virtual space and imploding reality.

It’s an epoch of selfies and self-aggrandizement.

I stepped back into this new American heartland,

seeking refuge from the chaos of my motherland.

But I found myself a stranger in a strange land.

I couldn’t even recognize my homeland.

An overinfestation of drones had turned

the rich landscape into a stark whitescape.

All traces of color inevitably wiped away

in all the places I once cherished.

Millennia-old rites willfully dismissed

by millennials who think they know.

But you and I know they cannot see at all…

not beyond their smartphones, at least.

Yet, even they can sense an imminent world war.

It will be a civil war at first.

But it will quickly escalate into manus ex machina:

An epic, final battle for the soul.

But in the midst of this wasteland:

a dumping ground for obsolete goods,

abandoned dreams, and discarded lives,

a miracle happened.

My love, I found you outside a place I loathe,

on a perfect summer’s eve evening.

You courted me with sunflowers,

and our love bloomed in the shade of domesticity.

In this agitated world, can I even hope for love to thrive?

When every stolen kiss is archived not by the heart, but in the cloud?

I’m afraid the world knows of our restless kingdom,

and they will try to destroy it by any means possible.

"Love in the Age of Surveillance" - © 2016 Kiran Rajagopalan

#capitalism #graffiti #bronx #colonialism #blacklivesmatter #dystopia