Wind cuts through the window,
Where I sit alone,
Staring into the bumps of paint
Splashed on my wall.

The computer, in its eighth month
Of continuous operation,
Plays the voice of a stranger
Who I’ll never know.
But, gods I wish I could.

We could dance through the streets,
Feel our bodies scraping together,
Each breath in the air
carrying a bit of you into me.
Wouldn’t it be so wonderful?

Now, here we are.
Back at the computer.
Plastic and glass as the threshold.
You in your world,
And I’m just me.

Various contentions commandeer the gossamer
threading of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it amateur
apertures
free loading and buffering to the hammer strikes
of daring digital darlings
raising stakes in the race
to the bottom

All our ever present neurons
raining clusters of chemicals into challenge videos
and lip-sync contests fray under the drip
of toxic positivity and special guests
with arcana wit and a pithy redress
to the hectic tempest control
of foreign fingers

These chance tragedies and reality puppet shows
commune and presume to know better than best
in show
about the circumstance of happenstance
when the fickle turn away
to gaze fiery into a rabbit hole
curated for those who
skew chaotic

No cogent tightrope margin tricksters
will condone the manic viral feel-good fixtures
hanging from the yellowed wind chime
keys which only lock up fever rituals
with dancing flame and ridicule
made wholly manifest from
distant voices

Suburban haze arrangements rot eternal
while withered updates wax nocturnal
failures
in feeds of fomented fragility
lost among our endless
search for an end
of searching

Planned spontaneity burns borrowed minutes
festering in the better world we prohibit
and all along the symptom was
buried with the cure
as we the ill incarnate
toiling with clicking tongues
red from cherry picked plights,
block windmills
and declare defeat