‘Prophecies and things’ – a poem about smartphones by pro mentor Renée Dawkins
Prophecies and things
I’ve been making strings from corn husks, lately.
It’s a pretty basic procedure but
I’ve been doing it to stop myself from staring
at my oracle box for too long.
That’s what I call my phone nowadays –
I’ve realised its magical powers are endless
and “traditional mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities” simply does not cut it.
I got that from Wikipedia
… during a séance with my oracle box, obviously.
So. This “oracle box”.
It tells me things I didn’t even know about myself -
things I couldn’t and definitely probably shouldn’t know.
For example –
this year, I learnt that I was or am(?)
- an omnivert
- anxiously attached
- lacking audacity
- unsure of what it means to pilfer
- securely attached
- and, the thing that scared me the most:
I have been poisoning myself every time I fry an egg in my decades old non-stick pan.
They call them “forever chemicals”
—or PFAs, if your oracle box shares similar prophecies to mine.
(They’re turning up in our waters too, apparently)
Anyways,
This
—as well as AI jump scares of Jordan Peterson—
is what it means to come into the light.
To enjoy the fruits of enlightenment offered by these tiny little light-up genies.
I explain all this to my friends with a straight face when they ask
how the hell I’ve had a grade 2 carcinoma and
asymptomatic Hepatitis B in the space of two days.
Healthline. Web MD. NHS.com. Medical News Today, I retort.
They scoff.
Some people just can’t handle the truth, I tell my oracle box,
just like the doctor who said my very obviously irregular mole resembled
the unremarkable chickenpox scars I had developed
after my first battle with kidney disease.
The cheek of it.
Imagine thinking of six years of medical school could have anything on these digital prophecies.
Nothing. Fucking nothing,
I rage as I cancel the mastectomy in my iCalendar.
So yeah. These are the revelations I mean.
This oracle box is powerful stuff.
Life-giving in some respects.