Read Poem: Reboot Me, Please, by Emilio Iasiello

You tell me I let go of social media
like the last of three wishes.

Remind me how too much screen time
is bad for the eyes,
that I don’t leave my house,
get no exercise.

My heart is a motherboard (you say);
it keeps the rest of the machine going.
That my ears, nose, and throat
are USB ports that bring
the outside world, inside.

When I tell you how information sparks
my consciousness,
you show me a stack of books
I haven’t read.
Greeting cards I haven’t sent.
A canvas left abandoned
of my habit of adding
Cerulean blue shading.

Our lives are not a series of texts
and emojis that have replaced
the need for speech
and therefore, spelling.

Grammar is not an antiquated
language no longer practiced
by the masses.

Devices are not relationships
because they don’t give back.

Independent thought starts from within
regardless of wattage or processor,
a string of ideas that carries
in perpetuity like finely crafted code.
The errors are minor
when things flow unimpeded.

Synapses are like programming bits,
they work best in pairs.