Wake up, my dear, but continue to dream

Let's play a game of make belief

Help me break these digital chains

And run to a wilderness, wild and free

***

I read somewhere 'the future is orange'

Yet we still long for a past that was green

Can we retain mother-nature in a non-JPEG format?

A utopian former life outside our computer screens?

***

Join me to where our phones are always out of reach

Where there are no satellites to spy on our liberated beings

They say 'life is a jungle' - they lied

In jungles one could still find peace

***

Let's role-play Adam and Eve

Of times prior to the censoring fig-leaf

Join me and get down on your hands and knees

I'll race you across these ever-green fields

***

Release me from the codes of decorum

And unleash the animal in me

Do not scream should I bite you

You can dig in your claws deep

***

We could dance in the rain

We could roll in the mud

Imagine; we might even forget our pains

No more tears that flood

***

There are no four-wheel drive vehicles there

Just four-legged mammals, birds and bees

Unlike man, most animals kill for food, not for sport

Let's find refuge in what remains of that tree

***

You won't see animals in control of nuclear triggers

With one wrong flick threatening their kind with extinction

Only here do you find such beasts

Though they're dressed in human skin

***

As we wake to the sound of a digital alarm

I shave - for work - and wear an ironed shirt

Locking her femininity away

She puts on her formal pin-striped skirt

***

I, with colour-coordinated clothes

And she, with a handbag that matches her shoes

We appear as modern, civilised couple

As we tuck in our hopes, fears and blues

Mamoon Alabbasi