monologue

"What's it like, long distance?"


 Long-distance? Oh just, you know...

...A vital line stretched to screaming...

With internet and Whatsapp and things...

..The scream disperses—mid-throat, mid-call, mid-Hold on, someone's calling let me check'…

And we're so rushed these days...

…I feel the agony of hours when a text isn't returned, maybe not even seen…

People keep telling us we're the couple they're pinning their hopes on (haha)…

…All our irony can't save us from expectations, theirs or our own…

But yeah, honestly, I think it's good. Gives us our space, you know?

…The spaces of texts unsent, stored as drafts, to be sent at any time...

documentary

In the old films, the heroes make exaggerated expressions—

Shaking their fists, or tap-dancing at street-corners,

While foreign, foreign voices announce the day’s news behind.

And in the old photographs, people have

Hairstyles and clothes so stagey we have to laugh.

Sometimes I think that they’re laughing with us,

It’s all a big joke, of course the screens and glossy pages 

Wasn’t how they lived really. And I can laugh freer 

Knowing that the future will cut us the same slack.