To the people who no longer wish to connect with me on Facebook
I do not understand social media.
Perhaps, because I’ve never gone back
to a high school reunion.
So, maybe I don’t understand the need
to pose carefully in an expertly cropped photo,
and present a life only found by models
that pose in those picture frame
family inserts we throwaway.
I think it would be torture trying to fit
into clothes for a few hours, to nurse
a vodka and tonic and connect over stories
that didn’t matter to me when they happened.
So, I skate across the same icy surface
we all do, and I listen for the inevitable
cracks. When I don’t hear from you,
I realize that you’ve simply gone down
into the frigid water between posts.
You’re divorced. Your child is sick. You wish
you could just die. Your fingers numb
as they clutch the ice to post a picture of dinner
and pray that someone likes beef tenderloin,
as your legs continue to kick
I do not understand social media.
Perhaps, because I’ve never gone back
to a high school reunion.
So, maybe I don’t understand the need
to pose carefully in an expertly cropped photo,
and present a life only found by models
that pose in those picture frame
family inserts we throwaway.
I think it would be torture trying to fit
into clothes for a few hours, to nurse
a vodka and tonic and connect over stories
that didn’t matter to me when they happened.
So, I skate across the same icy surface
we all do, and I listen for the inevitable
cracks. When I don’t hear from you,
I realize that you’ve simply gone down
into the frigid water between posts.
You’re divorced. Your child is sick. You wish
you could just die. Your fingers numb
as they clutch the ice to post a picture of dinner
and pray that someone likes beef tenderloin,
as your legs continue to kick
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson