May 17th, 2024
6:03 AM

I peered out the window of a blue Toyota Forerunner,
overwhelmed by the recollections of this semester,
sleep deprived from the over consumption of rum and coke,
dazed by anticipation of reaching the airport in time amidst the morning fog

ready to go
ready to scrub my interior slate clean of all the char and soot that concealed the sunlight
but the moment I drove out from the campus arches
I never actually left

my chest swelled as I thought about each gesture
exposed through the little numbers on the screen

{how many likes yesterday
how many followers today
how many stories will I miss}

My befuddled heart could no longer take the digs of subordination to the multiverse of likes, comments, and well
meta.

I have exactly one month until I leave
One month to detach, to reflect, and to cleanse myself of the muck that disguises reality.

snapchat: deleted
instagram: deleted
tiktok: deleted

social withdrawals
May 19th, 2024
11:02 PM

Alright I failed.
I redownloaded snapchat and instagram…
and tiktok
but only for fifteen minutes, I promise!
it’s woeful that I get so comfortable with my phone in my hand
my bored fingers crave the scrolling
my nosy mind craves the updates

but in all honesty,
who cares what joeshmo is up to today?

after deleting those wretched little squares once and for all,
I ran into another issue

never did I think I would find myself mindlessly scrolling on the most banal social media platform to exist.

linkedin: deleted

a new beginning
June 9th, 2024
12:18 AM

no one really tells you how effortlessly an addiction sprawls into your fingers.

as you’ve probably guessed, all the socials have been redownloaded and consuming my willpower through these unoccupied days where my fingers have more strength to entertain themselves than the neurons in my brain

i was not going to give up there

my lovely friends are contributing to my mission by stripping away my passwords. i no longer have free reign to redownload and see all the things i wish to.

while i have failed to meet my may expectations, we have extended this challenge until august first
and oh, how it would be so humiliating to beg for a release

this may all seem like a dramatic plea
but it’s become so engrained in my daily routine to click and scroll, click and scroll, click and scroll

oh yeah!
June 16th, 2024

the instagram appetite has finally disappeared and i…

failed