I’m not speaking about certain individuals like a lost love or the fatality of friends
I mean the sincerity of strangers threaded throughout our thumbprints
Those unsung spirits
Heroines and heroes sans egos but with in-erasable emotions
I miss someone wearing their heart on their sleeves and instead of shooing them away, I would roll mine up in turn and say,
Let’s see how we can work with this
But instead, I work to brighten the smiles of people on a screen
Chained to a desk, the only heartbeat I feel is the pulsing of the mouse underneath my hand
The only connections I see are through a glass screen into a false reality
I miss hellos that led to handshakes and handshakes that end in leaving hugs, and all of that spectacular serendipity of connectivity in between
Give me a dive bar where I may go swimming in the hearts of man
Unchain me from the chain restaurants that source their livelihood from the masses
Give me someone local and lean, whose meat is juicy like their stories.
It’s no wonder that en entire generation of people connecting online oftentimes feel themselves a little bit disconnected
A poke is a joke and a like is like a fleeting lark
Momentarily engaging but all of this social interaction is ultimately leading to absolute isolation
And there is no sharing in the longevity of loneliness
While we spend hours cramming the best parts of ourselves onto the Internet
We’re leaving the focal point of ourselves back in fundamental fibers
Those beautiful inconsistencies of humans
That recognition of a counterpoint in another soul
But instead we counter online arguments
Facebook battle war zones littered with text instead of empty bullet casings
Fueling the hate with blank boxes of ammunition
Igniting fires we are trying so desperately to escape within ourselves
Reignited by the artificial flames of the media and the ‘other’
Even the tinder we have today cannot seem to spark because it will never be able to match that feeling of going weak in the knees
LOL no longer an abbreviation but a code of letters standing for the idea of laughter
But there’s not shortening like the shortness of breath from laughing so hard you cannot stop
With Buzzfeed ringing in my ear like the banality of busy bee
I sit at my desk, my fingers type out messages I yearn to speak aloud
My eyes scan pictures I wish to witness
My heart longs to experience it with humankind instead of the holograms of the herd
This petty poem will never placate the palpable nature of people
This pandering of the populous will never play out the way we planned it
Until we fight for the friendships we’ve forsaken for Facebook
Until we stop idolizing instant individuals.
Until we stop teetering on the text of tweets
We will remain in our attempts to recreate this rapturous reality we’ve tried so hard to replicate
Until the only thing that lingers are the hallowed hearts harboring hardened hardships
Ultimately pining away for that palpable perfection of people.
Briana Wucinski 