This Is Not For Metrics

We shared a poem today. Emotionally raw and quite devastating. I watched my wife cry as they wrote. I held them when they pressed, 'submit'. Yes submit. Place your vulnerabilities out into the world—for understanding, for solidarity, for survival. For peace.

Someone pasted their life into an AI. They left a comment without reading a word.

My wife. Not 'this person'. River wrote with their wounds open.

You skimmed, pasted, and lied.

Fuck your engagement.

And, fuck your metrics.

This is what it costs to be vulnerable. And what it looks like when someone treats that cost like content.

why don’t you speak up

afraid to make myself

bigger

in any sense of the word

i swallowed silences

bigger than those words

the ink now is in

my

blood

and i speak circles around

my old self

i want to

engage and

find passionate people

the sting of the

empty words

and

empty promises

transactional

interactions

that should be

so much more human

it should be

about sharing our

hearts wide open

learning that art

can connect us

in tired times

and i spent so

much time being small

frozen to my room

while wasting away

potential

when i remembered

i could string words together

i felt like it i was in my place

these words are my home

and i will find shelter in them

until you walk in

faking connection

while i am

naked

each time

i find myself underwhelmed

by your mediocrity

sweat

on your brow as you

press a button

when someone gives

so much of themselves

hold space

know that the

tears

i shed were not the

only thing

sacrificed

for those words

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Silence stuffed in my mouth like a sock

Muffling words into submission.

Teeth beaten into the fetal position

Of my childhood.

Protecting against the blows.

Later.

So much later.

Arms outstretched and

Groping for light.

A murmur

Nothing more

Later still

So much later still.

Through half-steps and miss-steps

And purple bruising.

The faint smell

Of hope.

Realising in adulthood. Late,

But not too late.

To be dead

Close

But not quite.

People need to hear

Solidarity is healing

Knowing that the cry

At night has been

Shared

Before.

A moment that stirs weakness into the

Strength.

The pen

A rallying muscle –

To share

To bring a little light

To a world that is blinking in the

Dark.

To bring a little light

To a breaking soul.

My own.

To understand.

But you don’t know that

When you pretend to read

You don’t care that

I cried back

into the broken jaw

of a childhood

that left me for dead.

Back to nightmares that

Have haunted my waking dreams

And kept my sleeping

Ones at bay.

You didn’t know

Or didn’t care

That sharing.

Writing

Broke me and patched

Me back together.

With a bandaid.

You didn’t fucking care.

And neither did the bot

You used to make a frivolous comment

On a life.

Half dead.

Your engagement metrics

Are alive though.

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And that’s all that matters, right?

Your life.