Love in the Age of Computers
The poetry of people
crashing into one another,
of language sliding across the surface of chemistry,
the humane ‘trap and release’ of a one night stand,
the audible sound of connections being made
like the latch of a door
or the bolt action of a rusty Winchester,
the combustion of first flame
or the hiss of rain on a dying fire,
it’s all different now
as language is detached from flesh
by the cool blue disconnect of the world wide web.
The crackle of current just before the first storm,
the desperate attempt to speak
and then unspeak
the interior of longing,
the rush of want,
the heat of fear,
the necessity of contact
as skin is introduced to skin,
replaced by a spongy dance
across a plastic alphabet of squares.
No history lesson written in flesh,
no greedy hungry mouth,
no pulling pressing hands,
no journey across the familiar landscape of bodies
Only hollow palms
cupping the space
between syllables,
measuring the distance between
(please come) back
and (there’s no place like) home.
The poetry of people
crashing into one another
sliding across the surface of chemistry
closing the distance between bodies
is lost in the age of computers
because there’s no weight
to words spoken
by apathetic fingers
and delivered in Times New Roman to deaf eyes.
Photography © TJ Edson
Suzanne Lea lives and works outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Her work been featured in multiple locations, most recently the anthology Crooked Letters i, a collection of Southern-themed LGBT coming-out stories, published by NewSouth Books in 2015.
TJ Edson is the Art Director of Oddball Magazine and a volunteer at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery. He has also had work appear in Boston Compass.
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