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My phone died this week.
I’ve ordered a new one—
I’d like to say I’ve enjoyed the silence,
just lo-fi music playing, slipping into a flow state.
But I’d be lying.

Only a handful of friends to tell.
Enough to register the tragedy
of going off-grid, like it’s 1503—
where I imagine
I’d be decent at throwing logs on a fire,
but useless at hunting.
No survival instinct. I get sentimental 
when it gets quiet.

That’s how I finally understood
what Black Mirror really meant.
The slick glass, dark and dead,
reflecting back: 
smeared rectangle
of myself
slack-jawed, staring.
Neither of us blinking—only one of us
alive, allegedly.

I’d had that phone 
since before the pandemic.
It held more than my cache:
its shape, my memory,
my hand— 
aches for its frictionless drag.
But I had to get a replacement.

I even picked the same model,
not out of loyalty, just me hoping 
it would backfill the imprint 
of its ancestor.

I'm not too proud to admit
I miss the constant companionship,
fugue-state afternoons
given over to scrolling.

I’ve been more alone than I expected.
And lonelier still, realizing
how much of me
was never here to begin with.

It's a disorienting false north,
this gatherlessness; I'm still sitting with it. 

By the way, it's untrue news, 
that tech is soulless— 
it's been up at least one mortal
ever since
my husband powered it on for me,
a gift, 
ersatz affection in response
to a lack of discretion 
he'd only recently admitted.

Apparently, I cry now.
Despite half a life of spent 
convincing myself 
I’d therapized it out—
that tears were just poorly timed 
girlish things I'd evicted 
due to their silencing effect.
I was wrong, 
they were only hiding in the attic—

turns out all this noise was just insulation
from every soft place.

Evenings with him feel longer.
He’s older, closer
to death than me. He’d hate that I said it.
I won’t tell him. We’ve learned
to steer clear of each other’s art.
No rules about who we kill
on the page.
Best to leave it that way.

I wonder if we'll go back to old habits.
I think I already know answer.
This screenless space hasn’t been clarifying—
just absence,
with no metaphor to cushion it.

At the risk of repeating myself, 
I do know this: 
I miss her, Distraction—
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