Joseph Nicks

I Long For Longer Days

those bright but hazy

watermeloned days

of clueless youth

when we still had to

spit out the seeds

and we didn’t care

that the sticky juice

was dripping off our chins

our lives so full

that breakfast seemed

a distant past

by the rolling around

of bedtime

we were so much smarter 

than our phones

they stayed at home

and we were on our own

for most of the day

our search engine was the 

Dewey decimal system

and there were no annoying

Alexas or Siris or Cortanas

around to pretend to help us

with our homework or our chores

or try to show us how 

to use the bathroom

we didn’t need an Xbox

to teach us how to play

and we didn’t text 

or twitter

we just talked

and wrote letters

to each other

and brother, sister,

you don’t need an app

for that

Man, I’m Not Even Here

If I look long and hard enough, it appears

as if I actually was there – 

and there and there

and even there.

But it sure never felt like it  when I was

and it’s not any different now.  I can see

everyone breathing and moving around

and I listen to them speaking and when 

I talk, they seem to hear me but I don’t 

know what any of this really looks or 

sounds like to them.  For all I know 

it could be nothing more than fly-buzz 

in their ears.

There’s a realness about them that I just

don’t seem to possess, like I’m no more 

than a ghost of someone who never really 

even existed – a mere idea of what a life 

could be like if there were only some way 

to live it.

Could it be that someday I’ll look back on

this too and imagine that I had been here?