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HOW TO BE A HUMAN (a poem by Oluwaseyi Olatunji)

Read Time:1 Minute, 38 Second

Ain’t w’all forgetting_
how to be human.
W’all be texting,
tweeting, hanging-out with
a thousand strangers,
and we lose touch with
the ones we do know.
Last week; two suicides,
the week before; three,
this week, we dunno yet,
but don’t worry, you’ll be
the first to get the tweet, birdie!

Little wonder how
Insta and Twitter get_
to be the first announcers
of these tragedies.
Obviously, there are
not many real first responders.
If, just if, those people
had people around them,
who ain’t glued to screens
of little computers, maybe
there might have been a
different eventuality.

People should check on
people, not just their tweets,
snaps, insta-posts, whatsapp
statuses. People should care
for people, physically and
emotionally. People should call
people, nostalgic for the
ol’days when we sit by
the phone, waiting for the
call of a relative or a friend.

Technology is supposed to
bring us together, not apart,
tech is cool, but you shouldn’t
only greet your neighbour G.M on
WhatsApp just cause you were
both online at 5:45am.
We ain’t becoming computers,
we’re becoming weird,
cause computers don’t forget
to update and pop notifications,
even your TECNO F9 keeps
telling you that it has a glitch
which you’ll fail to treat
till it crashes. W’all too glued
to screens that we’re not
cognizant of our world.

Check the social media,
observe the emotional meter,
don’t it seem like everyone is
whining and bitter at something
they can’t even address directly,
they just come online and
cast their stones into the cloud.
True, the world ain’t fair, but
doesn’t mean we can’t be fair.

We mustn’t forget how
to be available, physically and
emotionally. A million emoji, snaps,
statuses, tweets can’t substitute
the feeling of another hand
holding yours, the comfort and
succour that another voice gives.
W’all guilty somehow, so
let’s work to make living easier,
first, by caring for each other,
It’s gonna get better.

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