Vanity Moved Us

This is not hyperbole
Our vanity has moved us
Not to tears of sorrow or joy
But out of the city that birthed us
And our mothers
And our fathers
Our grandparents and aunts and uncles
All of us vain
Concerned only with projecting our egos
Into the envy of the world
To catalog emotions no matter how fickle
To never understand that they're ephemeral
Self-worship has moved us literally
Out of the home we've owned
Off of the block where we played two hand touch
Tag, hide n' seek, we fought and made up on that street
So many posts, engineered by self-admiration
Building conceit on a foundation insecure
To show that we're strong and together
Not broken
Now those who maintain the platforms for our inflated purpose
Have taken over the city that birthed us
They own it and have developed a new culture
Vanity moved us
To envy
To lies
To dispassionate pleas for sympathy
To aggrandized accomplishment
To no self worth
To no place special