Curtains are drawn at night,

To shield our fragile minds

From obscurities

Mute outside.

 

Half are opaque,

Half are translucent.

Variety feeds the filters

Of our curiously wandering eyes.

 

We're fish inside

A filtered crystal pond,

Far from adept

To live

With such a hollow mess.

 

Their pen strokes paint our brains;

And make life wind limp around a chain.

 

Conform, conform, conform!

Affix the contrast, add a filter,

Beauty comes from Amaro,

Lens flare is artistic danger.

 

We swim in a straight line.

We must follow the schedule times.

 

Inkwell infused Instagrams immerse

The monotone grunge feed.

Their dye black skulls snug

Around what they think

Is a beautifully different noose.

 

But the children still run wary

From scare of the strings

Being taut

Too tightly loose.

 

All we all want is a filter,

A lie to a promise:

 

"I love you"

"I never meant it"

"We're forever"

“I promise”

"It's going to be okay"

 

A dotted line is sketched

From your mindlessly twined dreams

"New York and Paris;

I will make it big".

 

Ten years from these

Will you still trail a ghost?

Your lingering fantasies

No longer sugar coated;

But lacquered with dust

And your would-be ashes.

 

"Let me rest with my desires;

My beautifully infatuated filters"

 

Hashtag I woke up like this,

Washed in coffee;

Vintage Earlybird.

A soft pillow underneath my head.

A heater humming softly

From the corner of my bed.

 

But my strangers;

Brothers and sisters,

They need no heavy filters.

 

Hashtag they woke up like that,

At the routine crack of dawn.

Housing pain in their joints,

Labour aged lines

Racing across skin

With their dulcet pink scars.

 

Polaroid of the downtown

Twinkling lights.

Filter Valencia; a soft dazzling glow.

Omit the beggar

From your clean white frame;

Drown his copper tin can

In cross processed X-Pro.

 

But please before I stop

My circuitous train

Of midnight thought:

 

To my dear;

My stupid wishful thinking love:

 

I pray that you’ll keep my face

In the clear coral sunlight.

And add a filter (pretty please)

If our house of things I’ve left behind

Is too unbearable for you to look at.