Pen in hand, words spill out by the second, 

with the paper barely catching them and nestling them into rows. 

The words stretch, awakening from their repose

as the scene depicted before me beckons. 

I unravel my velvety checkered blanket,

giving love to the downy green grass

with a wistful sigh as I collapse.

I always have imagined picnics like it:

All pristine, slightly clouded skies, 

with cotton candy so silky smooth

hanging in the blue, 

that it only exists to tantalize.

But soon, the smell becomes nauseating,

too sickly sweet, like garbage.

The sun lays low, dripping crimson with carnage.

But a racing pain so excruciating

alarms me that what should be running

has stilled to dead silence.

My feet stumble in search of a new path

out of the way of a dying sun,

when I’m finally outrun,

by new technology’s aftermath. 

Scarlet streams out of my chest

with words scattered around me like a massacre,

once the landscape molds swifter than I mastered

with words in the hands of the non-fleshed.

I am a hollow shell reaped of blood,

brainless with a brain,

and a talent down the drain

with what I was pressed to become.

How far will we go?
When will we stop?

Let’s wring our power until the last drop.

It will do no harm to those below.

Letter paper walls close in.

Eyes blur as my pupils dilate when

Times New Roman scrawls my vision, 

causing every single muscle to flinch.

Raccoon eyes stare blankly at a screen

in a language never spoken,

with an expression so broken, 

resembling the host’s blinking machine. 

I strain myself under the grasp, holding me pinned

to pursue the dreams of my suitor

that secures my body against the face of the future.

Yet, it’s a future I want no part in.

I paint pictures with words, not digits.

But here I sit, year after year,

typing the lines dooming my picnic career

and so many others with it.