I miss writing. I miss having, rather, creating the space to speak my heart to an oft invisible audience just for the sake of having my life witnessed. I miss being witnessed. But I don’t miss the fish bowl. Our society has become a big, giant, wholly fragile glass bowl and we’re the fish, persistently peering at each other from the proximity of our phones. I used to really dig the process. The fish bowl and even the proximity. But the more work I do on my innards, the less appeal there is for me to be witnessed by people who could care less that I exist. While we can’t choose our exact audience, per say. We can choose our participation. While we cannot choose how folk perceive us, we can choose whether or not we wish to be perceived. I go back and forth about this. Should I just revisit keeping a journal? Should I bring back Friday Night Love and Light? Should I stay hidden? Longer? I’ve been working through it. I still take copious amounts of pictures, not every place I visit, but most places. I’ve been taking the time to experience things and detaching from the need to chronicle every single place I am at any given time. I take pictures of recipes I craft, because I really do have the intention of doing something with those things. I scroll. I read. I still get caught up in the feed life… but I don’t feed it. Not as much. Sometimes, not at all. But I miss talking to myself with my fingers and knowing an unknown audience might read it. Caring about the pages until they fade from memory. I miss giving it all away. Sometimes. Not really today. Today I miss the writing part. I miss the connecting my words with a place they go. A pen and screen. An ear. I stopped connecting because I got too close to the connected. I got to see the rawness of the most vulnerable of us. The loneliest of us. I saw how they see us as food. That’s why they call it a feed. We fill the feed and become food for the lonely and detached and insecure and afraid. People think they know you. Call you by names they didn’t earn the right to. They claim you. They lie about you. They lie to you and to themselves. They’ll change themselves-or tell you they did-just to get close enough to the food you provide on your feed. So I stopped because I stopped wanting to be food for people who can’t feed me in the same way. It’s air. Which isn’t nothing, just not enough to get full off of. It’s not dense. There is no fiber. It’s really just people sucking you dry and leaving you starved for attention. It’s air. Which isn’t nothing. Just not enough to get full off of. People have become this way. Thick and opaque like million pound clouds. Light enough to blow away, but full of acid rain. –e-