here i am writing

with hashtag_no_filter

yet here i am,

writing with a source of media

that is most certainly

filtering out my thoughts.

writing in itself is putting most everything in a filter.

one must take one’s thoughts,

dredge up all the colors,

all the hashtag_random_images,

 

all the small words,

all the bits of imagination

and self

and hashtag_soul

and here

and then

and the being-state

 

and the reason this poem perhaps may sound

so hashtag_choppy

is because i must take my words

and shove them through the filter paper

of language and hashtag_diction and phonemes and gramarye

and transmit even those through the brain,

through a living hashtag_mesh

a living hashtag_mess

 

of nerve fibers

and pulsing hashtag_life

and pure instinct

and cell-level signals

and initiate movement,

calculating the precise moment

in which to move each muscle,

to push each key

and with every stroke

to carve out some message for the hashtag_world

to see and divine some meaning from.

and so our whole world is entirely hashtag_filtered.

because i cannot

truly give you my thoughts,

my meaning,

my self

because we,

as hashtag_people,

we, the people,

cannot see each other but through a filter.

and i am just another one of you,

i, too, am living in a filter.

hashtag_why, we must be aliens,

for we cannot truly see one another but through a filter

whether that filter be of

a rumor or of

a first impression or of

the clothes we wear on our bodies

i wore black, i must be depressed today

he talks funnily, he must be gay

she acts different, let’s all shun her

and so we create a world round ourselves by way of filter

and i think it’s funny that

we think we can choose our way of life

but strip away our filter and it’s like we’ve lost the light

because i can guarantee that not one of you has ever

not once, in your entire lives

shut off the hashtag_iphone

hashtag_pared away the mask

stepped out into the sun

and just existed for the sake of being you.

 

i’m one of you, too.

 

i’ll admit i’m not perfect and

i suppose that’s the point, but

even now i am filtering you

and you are filtering me.

and i haven’t told you who i am yet,

but that’s hashtag_okay. okay?

we’re just taking baby steps.

piddling down the lane

hashtag_helter-skelter

with this filter of my mind

i can hashtag_divine

i can finally touch you with a word

a handful of letter-words

and your brain, too,

has filtered this into one message

you cannot possibly understand.

 

it is a mad place. and

the world is out of kilter

#_nofilter