THE BLACK BOX

 

THE BLACK BOX

THE BLACK BOX

She sits in a noisy room,

Holding tight to her black box,

Fingers rapidly scrolling,

Her mind hungry for connection.

She searches for the right page,

Reaching out to strangers

As if they hold the key

To something she has lost.

 

I ask her a question,

But through a fog she drifts,

Ignoring my voice

For more important people and places

Waiting behind a glowing screen.

She texts her friends,

Responds to strange men,

Smiling and imagining

With fingers touching her lips

While twiddling her long red hair

Worlds I cannot see

And emotions I cannot feel.

 

Her fingers dance quickly,

Writing hidden messages

To men she just met—

Little innuendos,

Savory thoughts

Wrapped in digital whispers.

I ask her to stop,

To put down the device,

To pay attention to us,

To listen to me.

But she doesn’t hear.

She just keeps staring,

Frantically responding

To messages from strangers,

To messages from boyfriends,

To messages that pull her

Further and further away.

 

And I sit beside her,

Watching the glow on her face

Replace the warmth of her eyes.

The room grows louder,

Yet somehow emptier,

As if the space between us

Has learned to echo.

 

I remember when her laughter

Filled the air like sunlight,

When her hands reached for mine

Instead of the cold rectangle

She now clings to like a lifeline.

I remember when conversation

Wasn’t a competition

Against a world of notifications.

Now I watch her drift—

A tide pulled by distant moons,

A mind wandering through

Other people’s stories,

Other people’s attention,

Other people’s desire.

And I wonder

How love survives

When the smallest screen

Can build the tallest glass wall.

A BROKEN BOY

 

A BROKEN BOY by Robert Margetts

A BROKEN BOY

When she looks straight through you,

Her longing drifting toward another stranger.

When she keeps texting others

Deep into the thinning hours of night,

Inviting him to early lunches,

Finding reasons to wander out to his farm.

When the warmth you offer

Is met with reluctant acceptance,

And your words fall unheard.

When tears gather

In the hollows of her eyes

As she lies turned away,

Falling silently into the cold dark

For the comfort of another man.

 

And hands that once Promised partnership

before a waiting crowd

Shatter the ring of time

And cast its circle

Onto deceit’s tarnished floor.

When lips that once pleaded

For hungry connection

Now spit the remnants of betrayal,

And the future you imagined

Is shadowed at its source.

 

There is no blow

A human hand could deliver

To match the ache now swelling

Between a man and his wife—

A pain blistering as open flame,

Stripping moisture from fragile skin;

A chill so deep it freezes the heart

And crystallizes the blood

Into shards that drift through the soul.

A pain as vast as the widening universe,

Seen through the Webb Telescope—

A hurt expanding,

stretching, drifting apart,

Leaving behind a numbness so heavy

It feels carved into the bones of existence.

And only a silver bullet in the head

Could numb my pain.

what is the meaning of this poem?

this poem symbolizes the collapse of a marriage as the collapse of an entire universe, where love, identity, and meaning drift apart like galaxies losing their shared gravity.