TWO POEMS by KRISTIN GUSTAFSON
Too Long; Didn’t Read (1)
after Tara Hardy [in 45 words]
I know my attention span is fucked when two minutes is too long for a video.
I follow the Reddit doctor’s orders, self-reflect, touch all the grass,
bury my phone in my lover’s backyard,
wait three days for it to be reborn
as a vibrator.
[in 16 words]
I bury my attention in my lover’s touch
long for minutes to be reborn as days
[in 6 words]
fuck the grass,
I touch myself
Too Long; Didn’t Read (2)
after Tara Hardy [in 89 words]
my childhood best friend’s computer was on the first floor
she didn’t have to traipse up flights of stairs
to feed her Neopets,
drown her cheating husbands in The Sims
we were twenty grubby digits desperate
for the single mouse, control over the surf
we grew with the internet, marked our heights
on a Deviantart doorframe
she helped me set up my Webkinz account there
my father was livid when he found out I used my real birthdate,
convinced I’d be a victim of identity theft at age eight
[in 9 words]
victim of the internet,
I drown in the surf