NPCs in a Dying Game

We pass each other like strangers
in a video game lobby,
names floating above our heads,
empty health bars,
all just waiting to disconnect.

No one looks long enough to see
that we’re bleeding.
We call it “privacy,”
but it’s just neglect
with better branding.

We mock the lonely for being lonely,
laugh at the hungry for begging,
spit on the broken for shattering—
while holding hands with
our own hungry, broken, lonely at home.

Humans are experts at pretending.
We’ve trained ourselves
to glance away from the pain
unless it’s trending.

I think about how life used to mean something—
when a neighbor’s cry
pulled the whole street to their door.
Now we just scroll past it,
double-tap if the lighting’s good.

We’re pathetic,
and we know it.
But we still claw
for a moment of each other’s gaze,
even if it’s just to be hated.

Because in this world,
attention is the only proof
that we were ever here.