Information Age

From a letter:

“The real horror of this time period, David, is that everything now is documented. Everything. There is video evidence of me falling madly in love for the first time for anyone who knows what to look for, whole blocks of text that pledge my undying and unwavering devotion to friends that I will never willingly see again, all of these pieces of myself and my life floating out there in space that because of technology I will never be able to take back. Human memory has plugged itself into the machinery. This is the end of independent sentience. The singularity must be near, which you are aware of because you’ve RSVP’d for it on Facebook.

… But as much as I’d like to protest, there’s nothing to deny about how enchanting it is, how tempting late at night the possibility of reliving such memories whenever I want to, in high definition, with the capability of pausing or making louder the parts where my mind used to falter. In the dark, while the world sleeps, that lonely blue screen like a hole in my heart that you can look through. At exactly 2 minutes and 36 seconds, something buried in me went quiet. I took a screencap. I saved it to my favorites so that I can find it quickly.”

Mixtapes

You made me a mixtape
of all the songs you like

that’s what you said
and I didn’t believe you
but yes, there were all of them
and you requested I listen to them all
in one sitting

I did it

It gave me shin splints
but I did it

You asked me to make you one
because that’s how it goes:
you do something for me
and I do something for you
something romantic
I don’t even tell you
that I haven’t made a mixtape in ages
It’s like I’m too tired
to tell you I don’t know what I like
anymore:

1) the sound of typewriters
2) the sound of rain
3) the sound of rain, while I’m in it
4) the sound of my curtains
5) Our Kitten Sees Ghosts, by Califone
6) the sound of you sleeping while we listen to Daft Punk
7) a conversation we once had in the days that I recorded our conversations about all that shit that happened in Pompeii
8) the sound of us walking around on the roof
9) the sound of the sun
10) the sound of the snow
11) the sound of the buses/the sound of the buses/the sound of the buses passing us by

It gets harder every year.

(written on a napkin
in the darkest corner
of an awkwardly dark tavern
full of awkwardly small tables
scarred with words like “faggot!”
and “heartz you”
that showed up in the paper
like the shape of a leaf
worthy of study
or the absolutely pointless dates
on a nameless headstone:)

Sometimes I forget that things exist.

No, not really.
In fact, it makes me sad.

Songs like this, mostly.
Reminds me of shit. My X
mostly.

You look like you could use
an excuse to get out of here.
Let me give you one of mine.