# Blinding Lights ![[img-poem-blindedbyfalselights.jpg]] Blinding Lights Lights! Camera! Action! Dancers spill from the clown car, A parade of distractions. $8 million for your 30-second stare. Now, look here! This outrageous social media post. Look at the world burning, starving, sinking. Swipe. Scroll. Click. React. While they chant: Let them eat cake. Let them fight for scraps. Let them argue over a stranger’s shopping cart. It turns into red-hot anger. It swirls in my mind like a storm. And I, what do I do? I doom-scroll, My favorite feed. What happened to the people on the plane? What happened to the ones swept by the rain? What is the government doing now? Who got Botox, Ozempic, or new hair? Another ping. Another flash. What will it be this time? Do I reach for the SNAP-prohibited snacks? Or do I offer a small sacrifice For those that He has put in my path? I can have the snack! It’s not a sin! Outrage and cravings. I deserve a full stomach, right? Justice can wait. Full and happy, i-everything in my hands. The bright noise of the world. Slot machine-like apps, flashing lights, Screens blinking, news screaming, Coins clunking, The perverted algorithm rolling its dice. I care. I do. Don’t I? Aren’t I supposed to love my neighbor as myself? Yes. But not like this. This is not caring. This is a system designed to keep ME blind. This is noise that steals my time, Immobilizing me, like a deer in the headlights. I could keep taking the lazy way out Small decision after small decision And one day wake up, surrounded by flames, Wondering how I even got there. Because I wasn’t paying attention. Because I just slid there. Wake up. Before it’s too late. Wake up. Turn around. Wake up! Where are you going?! You are blinded by false lights. Resist. They want you distracted. They want you tired. They want you to forget That you were made for more. But I remember now. --- _Photo by David Sager on Unsplash_