Social Interaction Poem by Nidhi Bhati

It was the year 2015 and
the October heat had made
the whole year it's summer retreat
in this sectioned town that was once
reclaimed from the sea.

'What would you do with out
me in this world of social interaction',
said the shadow to the girl.
The shadow had always responded
to her, in words and actions and
even in those late night figures
that were no longer privy to
the childhood she once claimed
to have lived.

The girl replies, ' Why make a fuss over our
shadow kissed bond now,
you always knew the truth,
this was the kind of social interaction
that we both enjoyed.

Let those who can't see beyond
all their whites and bright lights sit
and wonder what is so special about you,
a shadow that makes me
the person that I have become.

Or wait don't you only become something
when you were something to begin with in the first place,
aim I right? Does that even make sense.

What is more important,
that it makes sense to me
or that it should make sense to the majority?
But who decides the majority and
who decides that the power to decide
will lie with those in power.

Justice was, still is and will always remain
just a state of mind, and I'm sure
deep inside his platonic love for all things justice,
Plato knew it too that justice meant nothing
without his philosopher King.

But how can we talk of republics based on
justice and kings when we say we are
the 21st century human beings who
have been reduced to just mere virtual beings?
Run by a bunch of men belonging to a certain
apocalyptic class and yet claiming
to be something else!

What's with the obsession with 'BEING SOMETHING'?
Aren't people sick of it already?
Who says that 'being something' is a more
important step towards the validation
of your existence in this virtuous world
than just merely being.

If those people who claim to have known
and understood what being virtuous was,
were still alive I wonder if they would bet
their lives on this hit and try trial between
being Virtuous and being virtual.

Would they still live up to their views or
would they conform to what the bourgeois breaths
and believes and thus hail to capitalism.

Why can't they just be.
Why do they have to make every believer
of a certain kind be a part of their hit list.
Why?

I just don't understand all this!
You tell me shadow, Can you?

Shadow looks down and all around
and replies, "You talk to much. Always have.'

The Girl sighs and cries, ' Don't you have to talk,
to make sure you are alive.'