Kids playing, guys chatting, cars running.
There she goes.
An infinite scroll, it could last forever.
Who knows where the data heads?
CIA? China? Pentagon?
Your mom?

Flood of notifications on how pretty you are,
When not on the phone.

"... sent you a message"
"... tag you in a post"
"... sent you a direct message"
"... mentioned you on twitter"
"... tag you in a picture"

Those notifications were the best to receive
knowing that you were thinking of me when you came across something
Knowing that you'd text me without me texting you first

I'd do the same thing too
Because you're always on my mind

But now with you gone,
My notifications are empty
And I can no longer send you posts that reminds me of you.

our relationship was notifications
banners I expected daily, without fail
ones that made my heart skip a beat
every single one i counted in my mind
they fell like coins in a jar, the clank- a smile

they morphed over times and months rolled themselves tighter and tighter, crushing us in its grasps

every time i see a notification
it’s not from you
i know
it’s almost never from you
and the coins in the jar have cracked it with each fall
and the shards dig into my heart every time i see
it isn’t you
i don’t know how to stop hoping that you’ll come back to me
that maybe one day i’ll get more notifications and it’ll be from you and-
i’ll smile
smiles seem so foreign to me now
what i do know is that it hurts

every notification that isn’t you is stabbing, twisting
and i turned them all off after I finally swirled into nothing but a cloud of pain
and i played music so loud i hoped it would crack through my skull
and i let myself dance
and forget

so what were we in the end?
us?
just a mass of notifications

how did they string together so well?
how did they fix themselves into a shape that convinced me to fall in love?

and how did they give themselves so much power
that now i feel myself disappearing bit by bit every time i see them

i’ve almost grown afraid of them

notifications
that’s all we were
and they themselves
omens of pain

but maybe that’s all we were too

Why am I so obsessed
With checking my notifications
If no one texts me
It feels like suffocation
That little red dot
Next to my application
It ***** me off
When it won’t work down at the station
I've got a mate who's into spontaneous flirtation
He met a bird on this app
I think she's Croatian
They went on two dates
And then went on vacation
Meanwhile I'm sat at home
Watching babe station
I fell in love once
Then realised it was infatuation  
She said I had no drive
But she had no imagination
When we go out
Theres no conversation
Even Siri
Gives me ******* quotations
My new phone
Is the new sensation
Checking Facebook
My only temptation
I check my phone
Just to know my location
**** it
I’ve had it...
With this nation

Please forgive me, Star.
I seem to have spammed you with
Notifications.

It's silly how
A little red number one
A yellow lightning bolt
Brings a rush of dopamine
So minor
Yet so addictive
That the aspiration
For validation
Might as well be so strong
That the cord of your mouse
Is shooting ******* through your arm
And moments are spent
Mind-numbingly
Refreshing the page
Just to see if a stranger
Not much different than yourself
Bothered to click a **** button

Nothing makes my day,
The way a yellow lightning bolt
On the top right of this page does.

That yellow lightning bolt
“You have new notifications”
truly; like my personal brand of ******
my personal, digital addiction;

I eagerly log in
to see which stranger now approves,
of the turmoil deep in me
to see which stranger considers me worthy;
worthy of “following”
worthy of paying attention to

“Your poem started trending”
Which one?  True Love?
OH WOW!  Strangers like my work?
should it even matter?
does it even matter?
**** straight it does!

Why?
I’ll tell you why;
People liking my poems means I’m not alone
if I’m crazy, I’m not the only one,
it means that somewhere in this upside down world
understands something about me

Following me means that my voice matters
if in ”real life” I don’t matter
if in ”real life” I’m stepped upon
at least here, people think me worthy

Others can at least identify
it means that I am not alone
it means that I might not be that crazy
it means that somewhere on this Earth
another heart beats –
another flame flickers
against the cold, dark of the World

Really, it communicates that I matter
that I too, have a place in the world