I'm Dead

I'm dead.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU!!!!

My phone fizzles out in my hand and my only thought is death. Without this tiny device, smaller than my hand, my life means nothing. Everything I've ever created is on my phone, my very soul and all my friends are linked to this mess of metal. I will never meet the only people I could ever trust with my secrets, if I don't have my phone.

No. Life without my phone? My $300 Motorola edge plus 2023? I can't imagine it. My phone is one with my flesh, I am one with glass, we are the same now.

My partner, my comrades, my digital pet, my long distance family, the music that makes life worth living, the things I write to support myself, the strings of code that make up my essence… that is all contained within 6 inches.

First… well, what stage of grief could that be? I don't know that without my phone. I'll cry, I'll scream, I'll bite and claw, that is what I would begin to do without my phone. Within the day? I'm numb, walking in circles and mumbling to myself. My thumbs will continue to twitch like I'm still typing. I'll become angry and erratic, I'll scream and damn you, and damn God, and I'll curse out anything within eyeshot. Maybe I'll have a gun, maybe I'll only have fingers missing nails.

What's next, what's next…? How much goes into grief? Ten stages? Seven? Do they repeat in an endless cycle until, eventually, I can't continue on? Will it end in my death, or my acceptance of a new life? No… Acceptance? I don't think I'm capable.

Would I die? Would my heart burst from my chest, shatter my ribs and flesh and soul out? Or would it be more depressing? A secret that only the forest and my body would truly know?

Without my phone, I'm a heap of meat to be consumed. I am a small creature only given power by the hidden people across the internet. I lack self, originality, and creativity.

My weakness may be momentary. Perhaps I would return to my roots, to who I was as a carefree child who never feared their shameful thoughts or what others may say about them. I would read again, I would write. I would give and receive, instead of stare and swipe, putting life into the world instead of blank nothingness. I may find new hobbies. Or bad habits.

What would happen to my digital currency? Would it become real, or place a new low on my shoulders? I like to think I could be free, if this neurosis would melt away with my phone. I would be happy again, or I would learn to be.

I could experience life.

Right?

It's silly. It's shallow. It's a crutch I've been using to weasel out of accountability.

My phone and my mental state are not connected. Facebook didn't make me cry, or form certain opinions, or make me crazy. These were experiences I would go through anyways, and the outcome will always be the same.

The one time I lived in reality more than the digital plane, I fucked up. I made mistakes, I left home, I ran away from everything. I pretended it was okay, and maybe I was, at the start. Now, it's devolved. It made me worse, because it was the one thing I could stare at from my pathetic position on the ground. Now, we're at eye level and I see what I always ignored.

If phones hadn't been made, I wouldn't be crazy. But it's too late, you can't go back now. The damage is done, and the perpetrator is

the only one to keep me stable.