Dialup Disenchantment
by Vivian Unger
from Vol. 2 No. 2, 2002

They’re out there.
Surfboards make no sound in cyberspace.
Don’t strain to hear the strains of “Wipe-out”
They move to a different tune—
More of a “Boing— boing— boing— boing
Haah Haaah Haaaah….”*
Connected.
But are you really connected?
That’s what we want, that’s what we long for.
But this?

At first it looks like fun, does it not?
So many voices/hands sharing thoughts of lusts of every taste.
Whether you want ropes around your wrist
Or the touch of a plush toy bear—
You’re not alone.
(Not alone?)
So you hope. Have the phone lines finally fulfilled their promise:
Can you reach out and touch someone?

But it doesn’t take long to realize
That the one who typed smile
Enclosed in asterisks, or lesser/greater parentheses
Isn’t smiling, any more than the one who typed LOL
Is Laughing Out Loud.
Oh, but he wants to be.
The conventions express not the deed but the desire,
Just like cybersex.
Here, words do not reveal, but conceal.

Conceal a body hunched in a pose
That will take a chiropractor to uncrack.
Conceal the boy in the mask of a girl
*The sound a modem makes as it connects to the computer server.
Or the girl in the mask of a boy.
Conceal physical unloveliness,
And flesh untouched for far too long, conceal
The loneliness and longing that led you here.
You are alone.

Here’s a question for philosophers
Forget those angels and their pin
But wonder: How many LOLs need you put in a post
Before it’s a party?

They’re out there.
Read these postings of a quasi-mystic zeal,
And enter a world where even the act of love
Isn’t real.