Selfies

Taking a selfie is not everybody’s cup of tea.

They are the domain of today’s teens.

So those in their thirties, forties and fifties

don’t take those monstrous selfies, I plead.

When you do so, you render yourself weird to the core

magnifying malignantly a part of your visage and chest.

How far you hold the phone and the angle matters.

A wrong hold in an odd angle and you are floored.

Shoot close and straight - you get nostrils blaring with gust,

hairs sticking out like antennae of wasps or roaches.

A little lower makes a mugshot of a thick necked thug,

a bulging shoulder that stretches out in haste

while the other appears a mid-sized appendage.

A little higher and you get a big headed moron,

your forehead a parched land stretching infinitely.

Your face looks as grave as an owl’s and if you smile

it falls flat like a jarring musical note prolonged.

And no, never try those contortions of face

you will end up a three dimensional eerie ET

thrusting its damned head into everyone’s sight.

So leave those selfies to the teens and those in the twenties

who have perfectly perfected the art of taking selfies

pouting their lips and standing at gravity defying angles

creasing their eyebrows like a rugged mountain range

hallowing their cheeks or tangling their arms with ease

creating those impossible naturally contrived smiles

and myriad emotions not deciphered in dictionaries.