So let us chat then, you and I.
I type it out, await reply.
Her window’s open, message seen
My boldness laid across her screen.
With baited breath my fingers hover;
I watch and wait,
Time ticks by.
Still no reply…
So how should I presume?
Webchat icon?
No, too soon.
On the feed the people post and tweet
Looking for something good to eat.
I stand and walk,
Wipe my brow.
There will be time,
Once we chat.
Sudden movement, what was that?
Just an ad.
A pop-up window nuzzles the screen,
Dances, flashes across my screen,
Persuading, seducing,
Potentially interrupting.
I shake the mouse,
Blank screen resumes.
My pathetic attempt still stands alone;
A conversation unconsummated.
And now it’s time for some KFC.
Username.
Password.
I re-enter the room;
Browse the faces, scan the names.
I know them all, I’ve known them all already.
Messaged each til dawn,
From evening to morning, morning to afternoon.
General chit-chat, cyberdates;
I have measured out my life in status updates.
They know me already, I know them all,
Their lives splattered across Facebook walls.
On the feed the people post and tweet
Looking for something good to eat.
Lonely men
Flirt with lit up screens in dark rooms,
With lust consumed,
They seek a flash of pleasure,
Their greasy hair combed over
Dishevelled brows overhanging dark eyes
Bookended with wrinkles.
Their fingers feed lies
To hopeful girls sprawled across Hello Kitty sheets,
Writhing with delight, twiddling their feet,
A guilty blush in their cheeks.
So how should I presume?
Any one will do,
Yet she may be one who,
Settling her laptop by her pillow
Might sigh and say,
“He is not what I want, at all.”
Would it be worth it in the end?
After endless revisions,
Constant typing, never sending.
To make the decision, ask the question
– what question?
Aye, there’s the rub.
For therein lies the potential for rejection.
Would it be worth a try?
If only the Wi-Fi
Could transmit my true feelings!
What I really want to say…
Could convey the words that are truly mine,
Compress my emotions into a single line
Or perhaps
Just give me courage enough to simply type…
“Hello.”
But the tension mounts,
The pressure builds too great
For a mere kilobyte to hold the weight.
Oh, to be able to say all that I mean,
To be truly seen
In a handful of symbols
Illuminated in liquid crystals.
To be alone with her
In a single connection
Among billions of bits and bytes.
Alone to talk of she and I…
But then her searching eyes would scan
My feeble lines.
See through the words and through the chat,
See the flaking skin and balding scalp.
She would laugh, Ctrl C, Ctrl V,
And then the world would see;
The laughing, mocking, twittering world
Would see…
So I silently retreat.
My words are plain for her to see,
Yet no word replies to me.
Should I make the attempt again?
Do I dare to post a tweet?
I wring my hands
My cursor flashes
Blink blink blink
Still a blank.
I grow bold… I grow bold…
The sweat upon my brow grows cold.
Should I type another word? Do I dare to shut it down?
I shall wash and shave and hit the town,
In smoke, liquor and women drown.
I do not think that they will speak to me.
I have lingered too long in the virtual ether,
Entangled in cables hugging the seabed,
Buried beneath the surging radio waves.
Human voices cannot wake me;
I have already drowned.