It’s sad, isn’t it?

That first thing in the morning, we choose to experience somebody else’s life instead of our own. Phone in hand, we open up whatever app will quench the dopamine craving the quickest. We scroll, mindlessly, our tired eyes merely open. We empty our energy, drain it from the color in our eyes as we pour ourselves into comparison, into desire, upon arising. First thing in the morning. And perhaps, last thing at night- our minds so close to the land of the subconscious, teeming with political outrage, body-envy, worldly despair. The images of blurred fine lines and smoothened dents circulating in our minds, until we spiral down the staircase of discontent and vacant thoughts. Each step, leading us further away from the truth. And then, our phone rests back down upon our bedside locker. The birds heard chirping softly from somewhere out there- a place we could’ve been held in wholeness, totality, if only we looked. But that doesn’t matter, we’ve already decided we’re not enough, could never possibly be enough. Adequacy exists only for those who acquire the newest clothes, the finest home, the clearest skin. The morning continues and we amble to the next room, the roof overhead a thought far behind her dimples and straight teeth, the nest where we lay nothing but a given. Empty stomachs nourished and fed, but we long to feel a different kind of satiation, a kind that knows only materiality and shallow hearts- we would choose to eat air if it meant we so much as touched the ideal of being thin, climb the pedestal set in stone by bodies we don’t know.