Protest Poetry – Oral Response Creative

Life’s a Game

BANG!
Blood, sweat and severed heads – you’re dead
Play. Another. Game.

Life’s a game, wining is losing.

I’m a filthy rich knight,
yet my life isn’t right.
I’m depressed.
Over nothing I get stressed.
I hate.
Hate my games, my life, my world.
Hate how my eyes cry and decimate.

Fell asleep chatting, I’m sleep deprived.

Groggy eyes, keyboard prints across my cheek.
Three days no shower - I really reek.
Fighting the pain, the loss - I cried.
Kidney failure, high risk of cancer.
Used to be fit – got abs and all,
Now it’s all abs of flabby flab.
Lost my job, my friends, my wife.
Soon it’ll be my life.

I need to,
need to step out of the cycle,
to turn off that screen,
to break unbreakable chains,
to retrain my brain.
To explore the green,
to fly amongst the vast blue sky.
You never know what this world may bring,
For life is more than just a game.
Protest Poetry – Oral Response Creative
This is a piece of protest poetry intended to comment on the impacts of a
sedentary lifestyle as society becomes more self-reliant on technology. It
has a slight rapper style which was incorporated to appeal to younger
audiences.

When I first created this poem with my friend in English ext class, I
never knew I would see the day where I actually talked to people who
have successfully completed a community-based rehab program
regarding technology/gaming addiction. 2 Years from that point, I met a
woman online who shared the story of her gaming addiction. For
confidentiality purposes, I’ll just describe her age only to be in her 40s.
She has shared this story to many others seeking help to overcome
gaming addiction on the community online.

A short summary of the story:

She was previously married. Had ~2 children and was taking care of
them. Except, she kept playing games constantly. It got so serious that
she neglected many family gatherings just to play games. On one
particular thanksgiving dinner evening, one which she didn’t attend, her
husband got so fed up that he divorced her. This left her alone with the 2
other young children she had to feed. She continued to game, neglecting
the lives of the children. Child protective custody services had to come
in and take the kids away. This is her story, one which I did not
anticipate to hear until I actually heard it. Honestly, I never knew I
would look back at this poem a few years later (right now), and link the
ideas in this poem to my recent experiences talking to others.

Perhaps we should all take some time to ruminate existential questions –

what should we do about our own lives? What are video games to us?
Why such hedonistic pleasure seekers we are? Is reality a game someone
is playing right now? Or perhaps, the game we are playing is with
ourselves? Who knows… Perhaps nothing is a game, but the word itself
is just an abstract idea…

Regardless of the answers, we should definitely live life to the fullest for
we only know how we can walk living as a human.