We Twitter, Tinder, Tumblr through eternity. Loquacious
text messages flit from fingertips, waves of data spill
through our skulls. Every cm2 of oxygen overflowing
with bank PINs, girls in yoga pants, the frequencies
of whale cries. Digital clouds brim with selfies and rain
videos on how to cook coconut shrimp. Sepia filtered
photographs prowl for leaks in blood brain barriers. Outside
our windows tree roots evolve into wires and trilling birds
sing the world electric. Every night we Facetime kiss perfect
glass lips before bed and utter our sincerest prayers to our daily
blogs. We travel the world from screen to screen (breast
to breast incognito.) The shortest distance between
home and work is a TV episode. Each hour is twenty songs.
We have lived a hundred lives in a breath and court ten lonely
women with a click. Emails trundle on invisible tracks of sky,
racing sexting winks and viral videos for our attention. Air
is composed of pixels and a radio bleeds white static. The world’s
digital heartbeat only slows when I face the empty stare of a dead
battery. A boy on the subway scans my image without blinking.
Women download my face in a glance. A minute is tortured.
Lifetimes breed under each fingernail and wait to explode.
Forty-eight and finally, I learn
how to start living if that’s
what it’s called.
I mean, spring ...