Poem: Cell Phone Gods

I'm scared to get a phone;
The time is coming soon again.

To blame the tracking by CIA,
bill collectors, or my family.
To blame my fear of being contactable,
accountable, responsible.
Possibly.
A phone is a commitment,
these days,
a relationship unto itself.
By having one I volunteer my participation
in the electronic voice network.
I can spray paint it
or change the ring-tones
to a song I like,
but that wont change the fact,
the Truth,
the very small way,
the phone enslaves me.

It always starts small,
then the slavery gets bigger.
Today it's a cell phone,
tomorrow it's a laptop,
the next day it's an implant.
Yes, Dad, "They" can listen to your conversations
through your cell phone;
Even when it's turned off.
Take the battery out, at least.

My last memories of my last cell,
two years ago,
are of my Mother yelling at me through it,
giving me a nervous breakdown with each call.
Of endless bill collectors,
of an angry girlfriend poisoning my pocket device
relentlessly with texts and voice mails.
Of calling my contacts to complain about my life,
only complaining just made it worse.
Of days on end afraid to check my voicemail,
the number of voice mails piling up,
getting larger and larger
- competing with my fear -
until I finally can't stand the tension
and I check my voicemail
to find nothing important at all.
Of three hundred calls for a person named "Hymie"
and three hundred explanations that
this is no longer "Hymie's" phone number.
Of hours spent waiting,
holding the radiation-emitting device
next to my brain
while pressing numbers in a corporate phone-tree-trap.

Yes, cell phone, I fear you.
Yes, call phone, I respect you.
Like I respect The Devil.
Like I respect Alcohol.
Like I respect Heroin.
I know how insidious you can be.

When you can reach anyone with a whim and a button-push:
How can you tell those Action-Takers
from the limitless number of Bullshitting-Talkers?
True friends from False?
Pay attention.
You pay attention.

I honor you, New God of Our Age.
Hail to Thee Cell Phone,
may I wield Thee like a Samurai,
like a double-sided dagger
you can both create division
and destroy division,
creating Unity.

Yea, creating Unity.