White-collar worker

a poem

I’ve spent countless evenings sitting with the computer on my lap, staring into the abyss of its white glow. As soon as I open a tab I have already forgotten why and so I drift from page to page, application to application, my brain littered with messages, buy this, do that, listen, watch, my body numb, just tingling in my legs.

The weight of the computer, its ghostly glow, the warmth it radiates, are the missing pieces. They make me whole. Without them, I am lost. Without them

It feels too dark.

It’s boring, it’s cold.

It’s like my body has adjusted its temperature to make room for a few degrees transferred from the hard-working processor, quietly rumbling. My lap is the perfect tabletop, my eyes are adjusted to the light reflecting from my keyboard to the screen and back again.

I’m so empty that I hope by holding on to this thin box of cables and chips and metal I can maintain meaning, fake purpose.

I pick it up and my brain screams

productivity!

accomplishments!

friends!

value!

But when I put it down it’s just me, tiny me, naked.

I have nothing going for myself, I think. I’m alone. My life means so little in the grand scheme of things. Emptiness. It fills me with fear. My body screams rest, my eyes crave darkness, my mind has started to imagine things that aren’t there and daydream of not being at all.

A small voice whispers, ESC, shut down instead of restart. No connection. No reception. But I don’t listen to it. I can’t let go. I don’t know what awaits if I do. People talk about the afterlife. They imagine all kinds of ways it might be. A paradise. Filled with loved ones. Full of light. But what if there’s nothing? Life stops. You stop.

I can’t risk that. I might never find my way back. So I get up to get my charger and by plugging it in, I give eternal life to this machine. At least one of us is immortal now.

The other one?

I have to lose to find her.