I know I should de-friend you, but I can't
I should foil your attempts at lurking on my wall and feeling mysterious
even though I know you're just sitting on your ass at an underpowered Mac
too weak even to open the links to my YouTube videos,
because you only want to read your email
and masturbate to lesbian porn, anyway.
You were always kind of a low-speed connection,
your downloads were much too slow for me.
I know I should de-friend you, but I can't
even though I discovered that someone had deleted you
and I wasted too many brain cycles
trying to figure out whether it was your girlfriend in town
or the married ex-girlfriend in Bolingbrook
or just one of those random strangers who send friend requests to everyone.
I wish I could delete you like a random stranger,
that I was one of those whimsical folk who add and erase people
like someone trying on multiple outfits at the department store.
A twitch of my right forefinger
would send you hurtling into cyberspace
I keep getting distracted by requests for games I have no desire to play,
and putting off my plans for your annihilation.
I know I should de-friend you, but I can't
It might be therapeutic to look at that photo on your page
that makes you look fat and smug
or the one where you're wearing that ridiculous hat
and standing in a garage filled with pumpkins.
You can read up-to-the-moment details of my status
in the 3-D world, while your face lies buried
in the left-hand corner of my cyber-drawer,
underneath a pile of other faces.
I know I should de-friend you, but I can't.
You are gone, and a plastic window remains
It stares like a glass eye, reflecting nothing.

---

Leah Mueller is a weird suburban housewife, and a frequent contributor to Poor Mojo's Almanac(k).