I can’t stay
away from screens.

I barely exist
in the physical world.

For maintenance only.

I disconnect to eat or to defecate.
I reconnect for work and leisure,
like I was meant to become data.

And like a fly tangled in a spider web,
it seems, I cannot escape
the World Wide Web.

The ghost of my existence clings
to the Internet of Things,
where the virtualized forms
of everyone and everything
dwell.

And things don’t happen anymore.
They don’t take place in the physical world.
And when they do, they echo in the metaverse.
I don’t exist anymore –
at least, not in the world I used to know.

Is this the beginning of
the technological singularity prophesied,
or are we already worshipping
the all-seeing tarantula?

We’re all chained to blockchains now.

When I turn off my devices,
who do I become?
And how do I get rid of this brain fog?

I cannot log in to Reality.
I’m there for maintenance only –
to charge batteries and
take care of basic physiological needs.

I cannot really log in to Reality.

Forgot password.

I must go back.

I must turn on
smartphone, computer, tablet, smartwatch
now.

Authenticating… Connecting…

must
surf.

must
serf.

Connected.