Last month I left Instagram because I didn’t enjoy the increasingly low nutrient interactions with my own and other people’s creativity. I became disillusioned with simply ‘Liking’ another’s work and, tbh, sometimes I couldn’t even be bothered to do that. And I noticed I was commenting less and less on posts even with people whose work I admired. I was becoming a discontented consumer of content, a restless voyeur. However, I also realised I was saying goodbye to my posts reaching over 200 views. And that was a problem too, a post became a datum point. Why did this post get fewer views? Do I need more poems about Kamikaze pilots? Or fewer? Or none? I found myself becoming caught up in projecting intentions on somebody’s lack of comment. Their lack of likes. I began to understood why many young people are so troubled by what happens in these spaces. So I said thank you and goodbye.
This poem is a parody of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous love sonnet that begins:
How do I Love thee? Let me count the ways.
Her focus on her love for the other has made it one of the most popular love poems of all time. My poem explores the way social media makes everything about me and the distorted emotions that brings.
It’s so much quieter here on my website and I don’t regret my decision, but…you know..
How do you Love Me?
How do you love me? Let me count the likes.
And see it in your comments down below-
Emoji flames and cats with hearts for eyes (though
Not as many as before). Your early spikes
Of interest seemed sincere, I thought I might
Be onto something good. But now you’ve got to go.
Expand horizons, make new friends, you know,
Be the better person, rise above your slights,
Unfollow you, maybe grow my hair a bit,
Make you miss me, broaden my appeal,
Wear a scarf, write at a desk with candles lit,
Affect a nonchalance that I don’t feel,
Because without your dopamine’s sweet hit,
Who am I now? Am I even real?