Journey to Ixtlan

A friend bemused that the world would be a better place without social media. The outcome, increased intimacy and connection, would be the benefit. Intimacy, and the lesser cousin of connection, come in many flavors. Social media can make past partners into now strangers. The actual embrace can be replaced by an emoticon. The speed of the world wide web can trump the face-to-face personal encounters. All of this is true. It is also true that there are people who naturally tend towards isolation. Intimate connections are not their norm. Left to their own devices, such a person is estranged from intimacy and connection. I partially wear that hat, enough to state that I appreciate the benefits of social media. Through social media I can relate to more people than my inclinations would manifest. These connections may be shallow compared to the best of intimate situations, but they are rich to me. The poem “Prison of Walls” is about how my life would be if I did not have social media as an outlet. Would I be intimately connected to others? Sure, but there would be walls present that I don’t have today.


Prison of Walls
Poem for Day 350 – 20151217

I dreamt of a prison of walls
surrounding my soul in their breadth
topped by razor thin wire
made by the sound of my breath.
Echoes of silence rebound
in halls filled with nothing at all.
Treading the stairs to nowhere
both attic and cellar are bare.

Intimate is all that I have
with ghosts and my heavy soul.
Connections are only as real
as those still absent evermore.
Rejoice for sanity gained
from madness of shared circumstance.
Everyone that should be here now
are present in this empty room.

The chairs are set for the sup
with nobody sent an invite.
The phone hangs unused on the wall
the texts may no longer flow.
The prison of walls manifests
from life's separation of souls.
Beware the razor thin wire
when the tools of connection are shorn.

© 2015, Sean Green. All Rights Reserved.