The television never fully turned off:
it only softened into noise.
Reality shows learned our names
before we learned theirs.
We voted strangers into meaning
from couches that never stopped listening.
MTV stopped playing music
and no one filed a complaint
that lasted longer than a commercial break.
We watched people become plotlines:
survival, romance, elimination, return.
Drama engineered as schedule stability.
Commercials told us happiness
had improved its formula:
now with fewer steps,
now with cellular coverage.
Flip phones snapped like punctuation.
Each call a small emergency
or rehearsal for one.
Texting arrived like shorthand fate:
no vowels wasted, no feeling fully spelled out.
We learned to love in abbreviations
that fit inside glowing rectangles.
Airports replayed themselves
in different cities, different time zones,
as if the world had learned
to loop without breaking.
We trusted machines more
because they did not hesitate.
Somewhere between September and forever,
the news began speaking in segments
too short to contradict themselves.
Even fear became scheduled.
At home, the cable box blinked 12:00
longer than anyone admitted.
Time behaved like a suggestion
we were not required to follow.
We didn’t notice at first
how often we refreshed the same channels,
waiting for something to change
without asking us to move.
And when change came,
it arrived already edited.
So we kept watching:
not because we believed it,
but because it kept happening
without us.
David A. Lee is physician, philosopher, and poet based in Houston, Texas, whose work explores memory, human connection, and the liminal spaces between perception and reality. He holds a background in medical science and philosophy, bringing a reflective and inquisitive lens to his writing. His poetry draws inspiration from both contemporary and classical literature, emphasizing vivid imagery and emotional depth. His poems are forthcoming in Mobius, Euonia Review, and Unbroken Journal. David is currently developing a collection of original poems examining time, identity, and place.
