privacy.

How many people have the key to your innards?

Dear Rebel,

I have given away my yell. Do you know how often I swallow seeds made of improper chokes? What‽ Let me pause a moment and rip up the shards of filament groping my tonsils.

 

Rebel, no one can be trusted these days, so I must speak to you in metaphor. Therefore, I’ve disconnected the wires holding me down like a well-trained dominatrix. These wires once connected me to you. And the one in Florida. And the music maker somewhere in Canada. And how is anyone going to know what I am eating now or angry about?

 

More importantly, how will I know how LIKED I am if there is no thumb beside my words to press and remind me I am good. 

 

Rebel, I play my ukelele and title chords I don’t know the names of. One is titled G-invert. Another is called C misbehaves and walks, slowly, out of the room. 

 

Rebel, when I play these chords, no one is listening but the mice hiding inside the walls of this Brooklyn apartment. Or the 3 year-old who lives with his folks on the top floor and he just may knock and ask to sit beside me. What I am trying to say is that this music is echoing like instrumental dust into my rooms and no one is telling me to continue. No one is telling me I am out of tune.

 

So…..if we do not share our latest WIN or fancy MEAL, does it still exist? Did it really happen?

 

Rebel, how many friends do you have. Now, write that number down. Tell me their middle names. And can you list their allergies and what pills they prefer. Do you know which ones used to be happy and which ones are visiting versions of “god” each week to find the answers? Now when you have that number down, how many of those friends have seen your home? How many of them know what keeps you indoors sometimes. How many have you shared a meal with or pot of tea?

 

We seem to be collecting friends these days. Last week, I overheard someone say:

I have 400 likes! And I’m nearing a thousand friends! Hashtag (#) LUCKY! (This was all spoken)

 

Rebel, I have a friend who lives in Minnesota who (sometimes) sits beside me when I poem; this friend is you. I have a friend in Brooklyn who has fed me when I cried so hard my body lost track of all its salt. It could only bend and barely stand. WAIT……

 

What defines “friend?”

 

Social media confuses us to believe a friend is someone who LIKES our outbursts. But how many of them rub our backs when we are engulfed in panic. How many will warm up a meal because rent removed all the money from skinny bank account and nourishment is just as necessary as breathing. 

 

Rebel, I told someone something and they told some others to get more LIKES and now I fear that this earth has turned into a giant game of telephone. 

 

Things are becoming twisted like intricate tree branches and perhaps I was born in the wrong time period. Perhaps I was meant to live in a time when privacy was encouraged, and not a hinderance from making “connections” with others.

 

Will I disappear if I stop pressing things onto computer screens?

 

Will people forget I am a poet? Will I forget I am a poet? Will the humans forget I am here?

 

Rebel, I am battling the war of privacy in my head. Here, within this screen, I feel ok. I know you are reading. And so is my Dad. And maybe my pen pal.

 

I promise never to include a LIKE button.  I want to remove the LIKE button and ask that you share words. Images. Questions. Or if you like something, let it push you outside. Let it call your friend so you can share your thoughts with them through voice contact. Let it tear out a piece of paper that you can fill up with your unraveled letters. 

 

We are spending too much time on these screens. And not enough time with the humans who give us something to respond to.