By Roger Chao

Digital Serfs

In the glow of the screen, where pixels dance and flicker bright,
We trade our days for data streams, surrendering the night.
Our minds once clear, but now cluttered, hum with endless scrolling,
In the depths of cyberspace, we’ve bartered hearts for trolling.

The morning sun, obscured behind the blinding, blue-lit haze,
No longer calls us from our dreams; instead, the screen’s bright blaze.
Demands our first and final thoughts, consumes our waking hours,
Its pixels form our new domain, in which mankind now cowers.

Once we walked in open fields, where thoughts could roam so freely,
But now we’re chained to circuits cold, bound by technology.
The world outside, so full of life, now fades into a blur,
While we, like moths, to glowing lights, in trance are drawn to stir.

Our privacy, that sacred space, where once we could retreat,
Is now a market’s currency, where buyer and seller meet.
For every like, for every share, a piece of us is sold,
Our memories and dreams and fears, for profit’s sake are told.

We hand our secrets willingly, for what? Convenience, ease?
The latest app, the trending feed, dopamine’s small release?
In the illusion of control, we click, we tap, we type,
Unknowing slaves to algorithms, in every single swipe.

The walls of serfdom rise anew, though not of stone and clay,
But made of codes and cookie trails, that track us day by day.
We toil within this digital fief, where masters are unseen,
And all the while we trick ourselves: “My freedom’s from ascreen.”

Yet freedom’s not in endless choice, in screens both large and small,
It lies within the silent pause, where no devices call.
In moments free from flashing lights, where thought can breathe and grow,
But these are scarce, and evermore, their scarcity we know.

We reach for likes across the world, a thousand miles away,
But fail to see those beside us – our friend or fiancée.
Our laughter comes in emojis, our tears in GIFs expressed,
In person, our voices falter, our emotions supressed.

The screens we hold, they shape our views, distort what once was clear,
And feed us curated visions of what we should hold dear.
They whisper lies of who we are, of what we should become,
In their grip, we lose ourselves, to body shame we succumb.

Autonomy, that noble quest, we thought was in our hands,
Is but a fleeting dream, lost in influencers and brands
For every like and every click, we yield a piece of mind,
Till all that’s left is hollowed out, a shell of humankind.

This digital serfdom, how it creeps right into our veins,
It robs us of relationships, and bind us with its chains.
In this era of modern life, we rarely see the bars,
That keep us shackled to our screens, regardless of the scars.

But still, a hope remains for those who dare to look away,
Who dare to find the sacred space where nature holds her sway.
To step outside the cyber grid, and hear the earth’s true voice,
To reclaim life, in its raw form, and make a better choice.

For in the quiet, unconnected, lies a freedom pure,
Thoughts can wander, hearts can heal, and true connections mature
So let us break these glowing chains, and find what we have lost,
For every freedom worth its name, must bear with it a cost.

The price is small, so step away, ignore the smartphone screen,
For in the end, the life we gain is richer and serene.
Seek the balance, not the bind, in technology’s wide net,
And never trade our very souls, for what we might regret.

The serfdom ends when we decide to walk the path less trod,
Where humans touch, and hearts connect, where real life is not odd
So lift your eyes from backlit screens, and see the world anew,
For life is lived in moments real, where screens are not in view.