By Ebhohon Majekodunmi Oseriemen

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They promised us light—
a golden sun in every socket,
a thousand pixel moons cupped in our palms.
No more shadows, they swore,
no more cracks for grief to hide.
We clapped. We swiped. We danced.
Drunk on the buzz of a future
too bright to see.

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Now—
where does a widow’s tear spill
without a hashtag sipping its salt?
Where can a man cradle his misfortune
without the glass eye of a lens
lapping it up?

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Even wind carries our keystrokes.
The walls murmur
our passwords in their sleep.

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Once, secrets sank—
heavy as stones,
nested in riverbeds,
moss-cold and mute.
Now they rise—
bloated, blue-lit corpses
in the cloud’s wet mouth,
where nothing drowns,
only floats,
and forever floats.

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They promised us safety—
but the night hums with drones,
each one sniffing heat like bloodhounds.
They promised us dignity—
but women fracture into pixels
while the algorithm
tugs at their skin.

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The trees look away in shame.
Even the stars have dimmed—
choked beneath the white noise of satellites.

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They said—Freedom!
But our footsteps leave glowing trails in the dark,
our voices
splinter into data shards.

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They said—Truth!
But we traded tongues for captchas,
now speak in codes and in blinking.

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Architects of the sleepless grid,
do our dreams glitch in your simulations?
Gods of feeds and feedback loops,
does our sorrow register—
or is it cached and cleared?

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They promised us light,
but here we kneel,
raw-skinned,
patching our shadows with firewalls,
mourning the dark
that once held us whole—
before the world turned glass,
and the night
forgot how to hide a secret
in its quiet,
unsaved code.

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Still—
in the static,
one shadow remains unrendered,
still flickers
where your light won’t go.

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