Monday, December 23, 2019

Hating the Messenger, Loving the Messages

I really hate Facebook Messenger.
People send me invitations to their gigs and make me feel bad about not
     wanting to go.
I prefer the smartphone program, Messages.
It doesn’t take much ratiocination
on anyone’s part for them to know
how harassed I feel when I get imploring or ambiguous messages from people
     on Facebook Messenger.
I have to struggle with my feelings, but eventually I realize
I have the right not to be trolled.
With the Messages
program, on the other hand, I have lovely conversations
with people who are not on Facebook
at all and so can’t be added to threads on Facebook Messenger.
I believe that if I really paid attention
to my feelings, I’d get off Facebook too;
but since I use Facebook so much in my poetry life, I’ll just freely block
     annoying Messenger threads, and resort to Messages
for my most important personal communications.
The thing is, none of us really knows
what will be the consequence of allowing ourselves to be hassled and abused
     day after day on Facebook and Facebook Messenger.
Are we missing the most important messages?