Modern love is not told in paper
but the pixels in a face trapped
and peering out, bound in comments,
tagged with us. Click, see friendship,
it is you and I, December, ‘in a relationship’,
flicking between pictures
from when we first met.
Forty-three people have liked
our solid-state love. Kiss kiss.
Heart heart. Smiley face.
Wink.
Facebook is like a photo album
for the mind and more forgetful.
It collects what we do not.
In March we shift to, ‘it’s complicated’.
(Acquaintances, not friends,
the people there to bolster numbers
and educate in networking, click
‘like’.)
It always ends.
In time,
come May,
we are ‘single’.
Facebook has updated but we are still
in this state;
you find three messages from a boy
that has been in my head for two months.
We end.
Spend our days stalking
clicking through the photos of each other
that now hold alien men where once
we were two halves of mussel shells.
A couple.
Now, separate
as salt dough to sweet.
We send niceties. Discuss politics. Say hello.
Someone finds an old disposable camera
from a trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach,
they upload it and tag us,
kissing with rock between our mouths
like lady and the tramp, but trampier.
You can trace the history
of real life, of us, of ourness
through MySQL databases,
notes, see friendship, click,
like, click, love,
click, love. Click, account.
Log out.
This poem has been removed as it’s to feature in Popshot Magazine in September 2010.
