Why Not Red Delicious, Granny Smith or Honeycrisp?

Kids are sent to school with apples,
ones that crunch numbers and bytes 
where red is read and juice is charge,
a daily dose of  energy every hour.

They take their apples out to recess
feed their egoism with plans to share
as others huddle around hoping for
bits of Internet, uncensored.

And hungry games are played
with guns and blood and gore,
so much they get desensitized
to violence. Reality a funhouse

mirror, warps young minds that morph
before their time, the video games
a fantastical  escape into the dark
a hide and seek, perception skewed.

*

I strongly believe that violent video games of hunting people and whatever else they do (we don't let our kids play them) contribute to the problems of today. Not long ago, I was in a game shop and the shelves were full of games for mature audiences. It used to be that these kinds of games were placed up high, but I noticed they were all over the shelves at eye level. I asked the teenager behind the desk why and he said because that has become the norm, that as a society we are desensitized to violence. I left without finding anything suitable for my boys.

What happens when someone is mentally unstable? Does that person lose touch with reality in such a way that the game becomes their world and he/she begins to play it in real life? What do you think?


Linked to Imaginary Gardens Open Link Monday