Phone face up on the nightstand dragging my eyes back from sleep
like a hook under skin,
One stupid notification, then another,
then I’m gone again, pulled right back in,
Room is quiet, neighbors out cold, but my ceiling’s full of flickering ghosts,
Every app lined up like shots at a bar
where the bartender never stops filling posts.
Thumb starts its little treadmill, muscle memory on a loop I didn’t choose,
News, thirst traps, memes, disasters stacked like different flavors of abuse,
Some stranger’s dinner, bombing footage, an ad that knows what shirt I like,
Video of a screaming cop, then a puppy, then a sponsored crystal bike,
It’s all the same sugar to my fried-out brain, different colors of the same hit,
Scroll down, scroll down, scroll down, never once asking if I wanted it.
It’s three in the morning and my thumb’s gone numb
while my heart feels scraped out hollow,
Drowning in a bottomless feed that knows I will always follow,
There’s a whole dead world outside my window, dark and still and real,
But I keep letting this little screen tell me how I’m supposed to feel.
Old messages float up like bodies from numbers I should have blocked,
Exes, almost-friends, half-finished threads
where the door never quite got locked,
I read back through old arguments I already lost ten times,
Pick at scars in blue and gray bubbles like they’re cross-examined crimes,
I could close the chat and breathe instead of rewinding every bruise,
But my thumb just keeps on moving like it forgot the word “refuse.”
Ads slide between tragedies, selling comfort while the bombs go off on mute,
“Treat yourself” between mass shootings like a punchline in a cheap-ass suit,
There’s a headline saying “world on fire,” then a video of a dance,
Someone’s polished little morning, someone else who never had a chance,
I’m supposed to care about everything,
but caring this thin is just terror and ash,
So I tap a heart on some dumb joke and watch my attention crash.
It’s three in the morning and my thumb’s locked in,
my brain’s half gone and sore,
Every swipe another promise that the next thing might finally score,
I could put this glowing brick down, but the silence feels like a threat,
So I keep feeding it my focus like it deserves this debt.
There’s a version of me that reads at night with a lamp and a creaking chair,
Who walks the block when sleep won’t come and actually tastes the air,
But this version lies in blue-white glow, neck bent, shoulders curled,
Letting strangers’ curated nonsense drip straight into my world,
I tell myself “this is the last scroll, after this I close my eyes,”
Then hit “refresh” like some addict begging the slot machine for surprise.
At the bottom of a thread about some stranger’s grief I’ll never touch,
I realize I’ve been holding my breath way, way too much,
My chest hurts from all the tension I didn’t know I’d stored,
From all the horror I absorbed while my body just lay ignored,
I’m crying over people I don’t know while the dishes rot in the sink,
While the messages from friends who love me sit unopened on the brink.
Battery drops to low, little red warning in the corner of my sight,
Should be the sign to put it down, let my brain cool off for the night,
Instead I plug it in beside me like an IV full of light,
Let that umbilical cord keep humming, keep me wired to this bite,
My pillow knows the exact shape of this routine by now,
Me, the phone, the endless feed, and one more “holy shit” eyebrow.
It’s three in the morning
and my thumb keeps twitching though I’ve seen this all before,
Same disasters, different angles, same influencers keeping score,
I’m full to the throat with nothing, starving while I overeat,
Feeding on reflections till I can’t feel my own heartbeat.
Tag
One night I’m gonna leave this thing on the dresser and turn it face-down dark,
Let the quiet crawl back in and see what’s left of my spark,
Tonight I kill the screen at last, lie there shaking in the black,
Hear my own pulse in the silence and feel my thumb still want it back.