What Is The World Now

Am not D and D
Am neither Magic nor Minecraft
nor even Pokemon Go
Not anime
Cannot speak in manga
Cannot read emoji
Am not EDM
Am no Internet troubadour
When new songs are mentioned
I am bewildered by them all
From behind these changes
I am asking

what is
the world now

Cannot stand in cipher
or freestyle
Words slip by
faster than I can hear
Though never shy to stage myself
As heads turn from what I do and am
I puzzle over how and why and

what is
the world now

I squint to see gray today
Was born to black or white
I strain to see gradation
from pole to pole
Was born to see either heat or ice
It turns faster
than I was raised to move
Was born to claim either here or there
Male or female
Right or left

I am being changed but

what is 
the world now

Stood so long
where ground seemed strong
So little need
to shift my weight
Footing changes below me
I maintain
but not without fear
Mind unclear as scramble
becomes routine
Body sore and incomplete
as pace rises and

what is
the world now

Am not made for this
Was made for a slower climb
In fact was not built to climb at all
Was expected to float and rise
by nature over nurture

What is
the world now 

A rock shuddering through changes
impersonal and fatal

People who are proudly not
what they were long forced to seem

And as for
shrunken, straggling, uncomfortable me

Am not D and D, am not shibari
Am not EMD, am not Fall Out Boy
Am lost old man
Zigging in panic to try and keep up
Increasingly unsure if I want to or should

for what is the world now

but a growing rejection
of all I was built for

Ready for my self-demolition
of which it will take little notice

as it moves in another direction
from where I shall rest in its dust