YouTube Shorts
A poem

It isn’t a waste of time when
I can skip everything boring
I can get out, I can forget
for 211 seconds how gripped
I am by my obsessions.
Fridges are being restocked
powders mix, I’ll never bake
clips of vintage Britney
before rose tints broke
did millions shout what few
slurred to me like a demand
if she danced to the pattern
of “never change”.
They’re rolling like tides
scheduled on my screen
the world bathes in toffee eyes
smiles that could kill chocolate
I skim top-rated reactions
“you’re rain, stay unhinged”
“I haven’t ever felt like this”
and wonder…for how long
we’ll choose love over cruelty
so common, scattered carbon
till someone holds up a signal
“what were you expecting?
this is social fucking media.”
Numb legs unfurl, I force them
to the balcony, when did
all my dresses fade to white?
my tissue dehydrated
my soul is on vacation
checks in every once in a while
voicing…is this thing still on?
I breathe in the pollution
drinking inhale, it never winks
three bulbs on at 3:30 am
a woman using her phone
a man smoking, also
a silhouette too far to map
I want to be them, so I can see
if I am leaking cytoplasm.
And these thoughts are
the good ones, from the list
haunting my head
so I turn my laptop back up
zoning in, promising myself
just one more short.


“A silhouette too far to map” it’s funny to think in terms of distances when the screen literally makes everything the same distance away. Yet, so often it’s the meta-distance of what I’m seeing that is changing and so many things end up having a different meaning to the outline, the silhouette.
Just one more 😊