Fred Aiken Writing

I spotted you somewhere else

far off in the future when you were a lot better person

and blindly we lead each other with one foot

in front of the other

making each other nervous laugh

because I don’t know where you’re going

you don’t know where I’ve been

except for the mimicry we practice

while playing roles behind locked doors

in dimmed lights

foolish music playing on vinyl

as we picture what it might mean to have a child

practicing for a game that has no rules or roles

but it makes sense so long as we don’t move

I wish I knew how to be social

but I never got into social media

because of my anti-social disorder

flaring up and scrolling through countless strangers’ posts,

updates,

thoughts,

tweets,

notes,

creating a horizon blinking

every five seconds after another update,

because I can’t help but see nothing

while seeing too much,

getting caught up in everything I don’t like

until I’m still up at 3am while refreshing my exes social media profile

and wondering if she’s as miserable as me

moon makers on a different planet

trying to terraform the wrong civilization

into musical notes that are interrupted by countless

fingers typing down asphalt

placed on precious metal to make

way for the new,

future,

disruption of what was there

now over there