Facebook Likes are to Social Interaction as Sugar is to Meat

What is a facebook like?

What does it mean?

I’ve given up interpreting

It’s not for me to decide,

I think.

I am subjected to them

In many ways, and

It seems to me, that people

Use them differently.

Some people use them

To say hi

Some people use them

To empathize

Some people get angry

Some people laugh

Some people are clearly

Horny

And others are flagrantly

Sad, desperate, pathetic or

In mourning, maybe?

There are a lot of expressions

But mourning cannot be.

I have a Facebook friend

Who seems to be

Mourning me–!

I have a few others

They use my Facebook

To express their ideas about

My body, my life and

Their pity.

I don’t pay them any mind

I just also unfortunately

Can’t trust anybody in the meantime

Inevitably I will be

Making a huge announcement

In the past, people have

Communicated their excitement

For me!

But in person

It was a different vibe entirely

So I don’t trust good statuses

Or bad, when bad things

Happened,

People were “so supportive”

And to my face

They shunned me

My weakness,

Pathetic

My despair

Contagious

“Bad attitude”, I guess

Is how they write it off

I don’t think there is much of a

Return for that policy.

Hah! Look at me

My bitterness seeping

Through my words like a

Stain in my heart

Oily and traveling

Up my sleeves as I type

I know I have a problem

But it’s too far gone to start

Now! Right? Oh, fuck

That’s not how problems work

Anyway

Facebook sucks, and liking things

Means nothing!

And everything

And some stuff in-between

I love people but I hate the

Bullshit scrapbooks they’re making digitally

I run a page because I am

Desperately seeking

Queer company

I am beacon-ing myself

I want to be “less lonely”

If that is possible

I am trying every way that I can

It’s working sometimes

I am grateful in that way

But to be honest

I am unsure of what it all means

I don’t think I “like” anything, anymore

I don’t think anyone “likes” me

All communications translate straight

To phony bologne’

Scar tissue running deep

There will never be a like

That feels like a hello

There will never be an emoji

That looks how I feel

That would be the worst emoji ever

No one would download that

Why would anyone

Make a face

Of a pathetic disowned disgrace

With pain seeping through my creases

Like a keloid–pus-ing and bleeding

To complain is to

Seek pity? I guess

I have never been to interested

In letting anyone near

So I’m not sure what ever prompted me

To make a profile and sign-in

I don’t care what you’re doing

Or who with or when

I hate sports

Your politics are ill-informed

I don’t need any more recipes

All of your likes

Are cryptic messages

From no one

To nowhere

So

Don’t think it means much

When you’re sending your Morse code

I won’t fall for any of

Y’all tricks anymore

Intimacy is a myth, dead

Like a dinosaur

A turn of the century

Fantasy, faded

Dissolved and abandoned

You can’t put a price on intimacy

There’s no economy in feeling complete

Divide, conquer

Separate the consumer from their need

Offer a subscription package

Make them feel like it’s a steal

A deal on something

Everyone has

Within themselves

Robbed, redressed

And sold as a

Like and a share

Who am I

But some bitter angry lez

Right I’m a man now I guess

Fucking Jesus

I keep misgendering myself

In my own fucking head

Somebody let me out

Or in

Or something

I don’t like this nonsense

I don’t like this world anymore