Conversation

 Conversation

 

In the text-and-email world

in which we operate,

in the sterile black-and-white

communications

we exchange,

where is the space 

for face-to-face?

 

We are increasingly

distant, aloof, divorced

from our own words,

divorced fro each other.

We do not see reactions:

her smile, his hurt, her anger,

their disappointment.

 

We substitute emoticons 

for emotion, and somehow

define that as relationship.

We exist in abbreviated times:

words and feelings and people

reduced to lowest terms—

symptoms of abbreviated connection.

 

We exist at arms’ length,

deaf and blind to each other;

riveted to screens and earbuds.

Is it any wonder that

we lack understanding,

empathy, kindness...?

 

We need to talk.