The internet is slow
and people keep
disconnecting
Bubbles of self importance
Removed from humanity
The world crumbles
and there’s concern
over a mistakenly made
overpriced coffee
First world problems
focused on the
wrong crisis

Gray shapes moved through blue fields,
and foothills faded to starry skies.
She’d traveled there and back again,
yearning through the kitchen window.
Beyond the lawn and chalky curb,
Over boxes full of tiny people,
To the edge of the horizon and back to here.

He was talking still somewhere.
Lips and teeth and tongue and clicks and clacks.
There was speech and sound but mostly noise,
And she wondered when it would all end,
and then it did.
And it was quiet,
But there was no calm.

Don't you get it?
we sweat it
they get it all


I won't give in
and
be a cog in their wheels
but
it feels like I'm pushing up daisies,
I'm not yet pushing twenty
years

why is it they got plenty and
I have porridge for breakfast?

Fears for the future
and it doesn't exist
yet,
it might never

we might sever all connection with
what makes us human.

This must be the dislocate
it cannot be fate,
perhaps
I've tuned out from the show
does anyone else know
what frequency we're on?

Disconnected syllables of broken names trying to be whole
fill my dreams and echo through my home
while the eyes of a billion childlike selves cast their judgement...
Who are you.
Dislocated limbs pile in corners of my room
and I've forgotten where each fits,
and to which long past figure they belong, but still their eyes question...
Who are you.
Disappearing thoughts leave mist in their wake
only remembered by their now empty space
and a distant weakening whisper...
Who are you.

it's raining and
the sky is cracking and
the clouds are growling and
all i can hear
with my ill ear
are the gentle drops of rain

the rain has broken
all the telephone wires
there is static when i try
to reach out to you
the internet died
sometime last night
and there's no way i can
speak to you

the cable was taken away and
the lights are flickering and
my phone short-circuted and
my laptop overheated and

i'm disconnected

i'm thinking back
to our last few days
and thinking of
the words i never heard
the words you never heard
when the calls dropped and
the line went numb
did you ever even hear me
when i whispered
"stay"

and i wonder now
maybe that was the problem all along
maybe we were always on the verge
of making our always into forever
and maybe our love just got stuck in

bad connection.

We are sitting in your car, and we are quiet.
The sun has set and the only illumination is the streetlights of the city I've told you I wanted to show you since the day we met.
For once, we are not holding hands.
Three hours prior we were staring at one another across the top of a table at Qdoba and you assured me things were working out. You assured me that we could continue as we were. This wasn't goodbye.
I assured me you weren't forcing those words, yet three hours later, as we are leaving the city I never got to show you, you are not looking at me.
The day before I would not hesitate to say I love you.
The day before, I would not doubt your touch.
The day before, I explained to you that I do not say "goodbye" when planning to see someone again. "Goodbye" is too permanent a term, "goodbye" is when you can't promise you'll come back.
Now, we are sitting in my basement and you lie on the couch.
I am sitting on the floor.
You're looking at your phone as I look for something to watch on the TV, and you do not seem to care what.
I look for something for you.
As it plays and you watch, I watch how quickly we are fading.
My heart yearns to show to you that I believe we are worth this, but just like the sun faded from the sky and we were overcome by the night sky,
it seemed the light had faded from your eyes and you no longer saw the sky in mine.
I attempt to make my way beside you on the couch, and I soon realize that there's no longer room in your life for two.
I found myself memorizing each freckle on your face,
I found myself remembering the shades of blue your eyes kaleidoscope into when hit by the sun.
I found myself wondering just when they might see sun again,
as I could tell they no longer shone when looking at me.
It was then that I realized my heart was no longer full of love,
it was empty from the lack of reciprocation.
You looked at me as though I held the answers to everything you'd ever asked,
but I feel as though you quickly realized I was an issue, outdated.
You left about midnight.
I kissed you as you left, and I thanked you for coming.
You assured me it wasn't a problem.
I told you that I loved you,
and you told me you loved me, too.
You said "goodnight,"
and for the first time,
I said
*"goodbye."

-I notice I'm a single singularity destined to be single with some regularity
-what? well when broken down I'm not one to be broken down for your reality
-why? I'm a single Hispanic male that notes your wrinkled pale panic rather easily
-how? I'm not one to kiss and tell but your windows have a tell; ever so slightly
-when? when you fail to comprehend that all the stories that we said aligned so naturally
-where? in the only place that matter most but ignored for someone less otherworldly

When I opened the Christmas gifts you got for me and vice versa.

On the way out to eat, you looked over your right shoulder just to observe traffic and all I could think about was how clear your eyes were from my view.

Every single time we say goodbye on the phone.

When we were sitting in Qdoba and you grabbed my hands, stared at me, smiled, and chuckled, insisting I was cute.

We were looking at the Waukesha skyline, and as we turned to get back to your car and escape the December cold, you tripped over the last standing Christmas tree that overlooked the city and I laughed hysterically.

When we raced across the Target parking lot and you beat me by a landslide, but you almost knocked a family over as you hardly stopped yourself from running into them.

The first time we ever skyped, my heart stopped as you looked at your whiteboard, doing homework. I still stop myself from saying it, every time you do.

When I was sitting in the passenger seat of your car in the Target parking lot, and you leaned over and kissed me. No warning. Just the kiss. You pulled back and smiled, forehead to forehead. Neither of us said one word.

When you spoke to me in nothing but Dance Gavin Dance lyrics for practically a whole day.

When you told me that this wasn't the relationship you thought it would be. I bit my tongue and held back tears.
I let you vent.
I let you disconnect.