You Have Zero Messages Poem by Patti Masterman

You have zero messages, it informs me curtly.
Well so what, what's different about this site?
I change sites like other people change shoes;
Because it seems there's so much going on
On the inside of me, that one site can't possibly
Capture a still life of all those piled up words.

I find I can make friends online easily now
But there is a curious online short circuit
Because all those friends seem so much alike;
Could they all be the same person; how can you tell
Since there's no voice, no face;
Only the occasional profile picture, if you're very lucky.

I have a life; I don't have to wait expectantly here
Day after day, in hopes a stray message will pop up
From somebody I really don't know anything about.

You have zero messages, it informs me again.
But wait- was that a smirk?
Because even though it's only a program
It knows I've checked for messages
Thirty times, in the last three days.

And even though I didn't ask it to remember,
You know, that it knows the password too.
It knows everything about me.
In fact, if it were alive
I probably would have had to kill it by now.