Between My Thumbs

The weight of nothing drips slow,  

screenlights tethered to my tired palms,  

a carnival of fleeting faces,  

pressing their pixels into my retinas.  

I am not here— not really.  

I am puddle-soft, melting into the couch,  

my tongue too sluggish for speech,  

my mind pacing corridors of static.  

An algorithm builds me a cradle  

of strangers I’ll never touch.  

Each flick down is a spell,  

a summoning of someone else's life.  

I scroll until I forget my own,  

until my breath becomes their captions,  

until I’m sure there’s nothing—  

no joy, no pulse, no voice—  

beyond the swipe of my thumb.  

Hours dissolve like oatmeal in rain,  

lukewarm and unsatisfying,  

disappearing without ceremony or reason.  

Still, I scroll, as if searching  

for a subject worth my own silence.