Nostalgia Ball

This day is cold, digital, black-on-white

like every day stretching forward

until the end of the world.

I miss the fuzz of photographs

taken with an analog, Polaroid blur

easily forgotten in the back of a closet.

Or the loss of time and geolocation,

once achieved by taking our bikes

and pedaling away from our parents’ houses

to wooded trails to swim in streams.

No one knew where we were,

except ourselves,

and no one worried about it,

at least not with the obsessive, hyperventilating,

second-to-second hunger of this new century.

I have access to every bit of information ever placed online,

and I am still lost,

because finding a path through infinite data

is like moving to a New York that encompasses the whole world,

and leaving all the small cities and towns empty like shells,

then wandering the streets looking for someone I recognize

to make me feel human again.